Two Birds
by AgentAva
Summary: A girl that defied a government and sparked a rebellion. A boy that the government would do anything to kill. And the Hunger Games is a perfect solution to eliminate both of them. It's like killing two birds with one stone. "The King walked in his garden green where grew a marvelous tree; and out of its leaves came singing birds by one, and two and three." Discontinued.
1. Reap

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hunger Games or Maximum Ride, nor their pertaining characters, settings or basic plot-lines.**

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1. Reap

Effie Trinket isn't as perky this reaping as she was last year. Her happiness seems strained, the lines on her brow, no matter how many times the Capitol performs surgery on her, are still there and if anything, deeper. Even the usually vibrant colors of her Capitol attire appears faded.

Still, she puts on a highly-strained smile. There is a single fish bowl in front of her, the one that holds my name and Peeta's and Haymitch's. The survivor's names. I am standing off to the side of the stage, between District 12's other two victors. While one side of me is reeking with the familiar scent of alcohol, my other side is warm. Peeta is slightly pressed into me, and we are holding hands, right out in the open. We are still dancing the dance Snow has forced me to attend. I flash a grim sort of look at the cameras I know must be zoning in on me right now, and focus back to Effie.

I am not ready to go back into the Games. I am not ready to fight to the death again, with mostly likely Peeta by my side. But I have to. And so I steel myself for my name, for Effie to dip her hand into that fishbowl and read my name to the crowd.

From my place on the stage I know that she is sweating under her wig. After she finished her short spiel on being in District 12 today, Effie announces that Snow has rewritten the rules for the Quarter Quell. The words startle me out of daydreaming, and I manage to tune into her words.

"Despite his earlier decisions regarding the Hunger Games, President Snow has decided to change things up a bit, and go through with a _new _set of rules for the Games."

Then what did Plutarch show me at the party? Was that a lie? A trick? I can feel Peeta stiffen next to me, and his blue eyes shift to look at me out of the corner of his eyes. I and too wound up in my own thoughts to return the look. _What does she mean by that?_ I go back to looking out at the crowd, and I pick out Prim, Gale. My mother. I search every one of the faces before me, as if trying to find the answer to my question, and as my eyes pass over each person I know that I know them all. But…what about the one in the middle?

He is a tall boy, with a shaggy head of strawberry blonde hair. That isn't something you see every day in District 12. This is why it shocks me so to look upon him. I keep my eyes trained on him, like he is my prey, as Effie continues on with her announcement.

She is reading off a piece of paper about the size of the ones inside of the glass bowl before her. Without looking up, she motions for someone offstage to come forward. Peeling my suspicious gaze away from the stranger to my eyes, I look over briefly to see a Peacekeeper roll forward two more bowls, full to the brim with names. What is going on?

"The Quarter Quell will have two tributes from each District, one picked from the general pool of victors and one…" Effie skews her face into a sort of frown, her eyes rereading the befuddling words. She lifts her head with a questioning look, as if trying to understand what she was reading. Maybe Effie didn't like what she was reading at all. My heart quickens against my chest as I waited for her to finish. "…and one from the applicable tributes, opposite gender from whomever's picked as the victor."

There is a collective murmur from the crowd as this sank in. It takes me and Peeta a little longer to realize what was going. Only one of us was going back, I fathom. Only one of us was going back to the Games.

"The other rule that has been…modified for the Quarter Quell is that _anyone_ can volunteer for anyone." This gains the piece of paper yet another perplexed look from Effie. Murmuring begins to diffuse down in the Square, but I say nothing at all. I just keep staring at Peeta and begin to form my plan in my head. _Anyone can volunteer_…that is when I know that I can save Peeta, even if it means walking into Snow's trap.

It is a trap set for me. He knew, somehow he must've known, that I would sacrifice myself for 'the love of my life,' for Peeta. In truth, it was a duty I took onto myself to save the boy with the bread from yet another brush with death.

I rip my eyes away from the tall boy to gap at Peeta. His uncertain blue eyes bore into mine. I understand what he is trying to say almost immediately. No matter what, he is going to volunteer. He is going back. I shake my head vigorously. I'm not going to let him go like that. I'm not going to let Peeta die like he almost did last Hunger Games. _Anyone_….

I restore my eyes to District 12 and prepare to volunteer.

Effie goes in and pulls out a strip of paper from the victor's bowl. She reads Peeta's name. Before he can go forward once more, I tear my hand from his and the dance is over. My voice echoes through the empty Square, but I don't care. I won't let him die for me.

This time, I will die for him; I will die for me. Because there is no way I will be able to survive two Hunger Games.

When I go up to meet her, Effie beams at me and then at the crowd. She puts a hand on my back and rubs it affectionately, like she is trying to convey a message. I receive it with a rush of guilt. She's sorry.

Our escort removes her hand and goes for the boy's podium; since I volunteered, that meant that now _I_ was going with a poor random soul from District 12. Effie relinquishes a slightly crinkled name, straightens it, and booms into the microphone proudly, "James Griffiths!"

Who is that? I scan the crowd for someone's face that is showered in fear. Instead, I saw the tall strawberry blonde boy pick up his head and blink at us. I am going to war with someone I have never seen before.

The Peacekeepers take the boy—James—out of his line and proceed to surround him as he made his way up to the stage. He is a slow walker; I can't help but notice, and pity him. No. I cannot pity this dead boy walking. That was what people did last year, before I was the girl on fire, but based off of what I see know, something inside me says that he isn't going to last a day in the Games. He doesn't seem to be affected by becoming a Tribute, either. There is no sort of emotion straining to shine on his face. To get up the stairs, he leans down a little, and sweeps an outstretched hand lightly over the first step. Then he continues on up until he was on the other side of Effie. I couldn't help but look over and study my new opponent.

In the background, Peeta is giving me a stolid stare, his blue eyes hard, but the victor vanishes from my sight when I realize who I am up against.

James Griffiths continues to stare blankly, emotionless, out at the crowd. But he can't be staring.

Because he is blind.

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**A/N: Thanks for reading! This is going to be a slightly longer note from me than the rest of the story, so just bare with me ^-^ This fic contains spoilers for both series in it. The story begins right before the Third Quarter Quell, and continues all the way to the end of Mockingjay. And I wrote this to make up for how horrible Nevermore (the final Maximum Ride book) ended. So get ready, because the birds are about to take flight!**

**And I think you know who Katniss's district partner is ;)**


	2. Wave

**Disclaimer: Maximum Ride and Hunger Games belong respectively to James Patterson and Suzanne Collins.**

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2. Wave

I have an hour. I am ushered into the same room as last Games, the same velvety chairs, the same lavish curtains and rugs. I do not, however, have the same visitors.

Effie, oddly enough, sees me first. There are tears in her done-up eyes when she looks at me, as if she knows something I don't. She probably does. But she grips me tightly to her and suffocates me in her Capitol smell. "I am so sorry, Katniss," she whispers fiercely in my ear, a catch in her voice. She is trying not to cry. It is goodbye for Effie Trinket. Other than the train and the interview lessons, this will be it. I will never see my pink escort again.

I know I will not make it this time. There is a claw deep in my stomach that clenches my insides, tells me that something will go wrong. Something _always_ goes wrong.

My next visitor is Peeta. Despite the fact that our love was nothing more than a dance to make sure the President had no reason to kill us, I still feel my shoulders relax when I see him. But he is just staring at me, with his piercing blue eyes. And then he won't look me in the eye. He looks at the wall; the couch; my shoes; his shoes; anything but at _me_. Finally, he asks, "Why, Katniss?"

I am still sitting on the velvet couch, the touch of it so inviting, I almost want to sit back and let it swallow me whole. It would be a lot less painful if a couch monster ate me now. "Why what?" I answer back.

"You didn't have to volunteer." His voice is getting louder. It bounces off the walls. "I could've gone back."

"I know," is all I can muster.

We finally meet each other's eyes across the room. It is quieter here than at the reaping. I stop stroking my couch. He barely blinks as he searches me for some sort of answer. I don't give him the satisfaction of finding one. Finally, Peeta shakes his head slightly, and removes himself from my sight.

Prim comes. Mother doesn't. My sister gives me a hug, a kiss on the forehead, and leaves. Gale comes, too. I stand for him and him only. We hug, and for a moment I take in the smell of him and it is the smell of the forest. It is the smell of what used to be. Everything is still, and we are just two people in a velvety room, locked in an embrace. As I grip him tighter, I can feel the rugged lines of the whip bulging against the back of his shirt. I don't look at his face when he lets go. I turn away so I don't have to watch the last person I want to remember leave.

It doesn't feel like an hour. It feels like a day, maybe five. But time doesn't matter; not now. Not when I'm going back—a fact that I am still numb to. Overlapping words of Peeta and Effie Trinket continue to whisper in my ear. _Anyone can volunteer_…_Why?_

I freeze when the door swings open and bangs on the wall behind. The Peacekeepers must be back to take me to the train. To take me to the hellhole; the Capitol. I am facing away from the door, looking out the window but seeing nothing in particular. I rise. "Is it time to go already?" I cast out my question lazily.

"I think we still have a few minutes."

It is not a voice I recognize. Swiveling on my heel, I turn to see my District partner, James Griffiths, leaning against the doorframe. He is taller than Gale and skinnier than Prim; his hair looks like a licking golden-orange fire. I can search him all I want, I know I can, but I don't. Instead I look away. He continues to stare ahead.

There is a faint grin stretched upon his face, and he saunters forward and sweeps his hands lightly over the chairs on either side of him. When he reaches me, James puts an arm out and pushes me aside with the back of his hand. For a swift gesture, it is strong, and puts me off balance by a half-step. The Griffiths boy aims a perfect fall onto my velvet couch and relaxes.

"This room has better seats than mine. Some crap material—polyester, or something." James tries at conversation.

I continue to stare at the boy. I don't move, don't say a word. He shifts his head over to where he left me. And grins. "Not much of a talker, now are you, Miss Everdeen?"

Gulping, I shift my weight and continue to stare at James and his flame-hair. "And you seem to talk too much." I comment warily.

He lets out a hearty laugh, like the kind my father used to make. The kind that dances around the room, simply for the satisfaction of getting you to smile. I remind myself that James Griffiths is not my father, nor will he ever be. He is just another dead tribute walking.

But two can play at this game.

"I've never seen you before. Where do you live? In the Seam?" I ask casually, walk over and sit down next to James. I turn my back to him 45 degrees and lean my spine against his bony side. The pressure against my back is actually quite comfortable, but I don't relax.

I can feel his body contort, and turn back to see. His face curls into a confused frown. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again; the action reminds me of a bright orange fish. "I…I'm not sure."

"But don't you have parents?"

"Well everyone's got to have parents, don't they?"

"How long have you lived here?" I press again. I am bemused. How does he not know where he lives?

"All my life…I mean, I guess." James furrows his brow. "I don't…I don't really know much about this place." After a minute of thinking, "Where are we?"

Somehow I manage to swallow down my look of utter surprise, but it is lost on the blind boy. "District 12." It takes much not to add, _of course_. How did he not know where he was?

"That's not what I remember."

"Well, then, what do you remember?" I press forward, not as much caring as I was interested in this newfound puzzle.

He smiles at me and the confusion lifts slightly from his face. "Not much. In case you haven't figured it out," He waved a large hand of slender fingers in front of his face lightheartedly. "I'm blind."

Despite the dark overcast hanging over District 12 and our horrid predicament, I couldn't help but laugh. No one else has ever really been able to do that for me—except for my father, and maybe Gale. "You don't say?"

…

Peeta tries to climb aboard the train headed for the Capitol when a new Peacekeeper stops him. He pulls out a gun and aims it at the victor's chest. The baker looks up, shock and hidden amusement on his face. "What is this for?"

In monotone, the Peacekeeper replies, "President's orders. Peeta Mellark will not be attending the 75th Hunger Games as a consulting victor. He will stay here, in District 12."

The door is swung shut, and Peeta is left out on the platform.

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**And the plot thickens. Your thoughts?**


	3. Ride

3. Ride

Despite the Quarter Quell looming over my head, when I climb onto the train I feel lighter than I have is years. I am still on guard, yes, but something is different. James doesn't fear death; he says so himself. He says that the Hunger Games would be a new adventure for him, like climbing a mountain or becoming the President. In turn, his jokes targeting the Capitol and the Games have made me forgotten all about my up-and-coming death. I forget, for now, that I might have to kill James Griffiths.

Effie and Haymitch are on the train, in the dining table. Effie is lying on the table with an empty liquor bottle sitting in front of her. Haymitch is casually sipping at his, leaning back in his chair. James is right behind me and feels when I stop. "What is it?" he asks. I look over at him and begin to point when I remember that he can't see.

"Effie's getting drunk with me," Haymitch replies, and takes a long swig of his wine-liquor mix. He smiles at me, and ignores James. It irks me for some reason, but I don't say anything.

Lighthearted James steps past me and sits down across from our consulting victor. I am still amazed that, being blind, he is able to do that. The train lurches as I take my first step in the dining car. We are leaving District 12. I plop myself down next to the blind boy and take a quick look around. "Where is Peeta?"

Frowning, Haymitch narrows his eyes and takes a peek around. "Huh. I knew somethin' felt off."

A layer of sweat erupts on my brow. "Isn't he supposed to be a mentor with you, Haymitch?" I ask cautiously.

This is when Effie decides to open her eyes drunkenly and sit back, leaving her wig on the table. I suppress a smirk at her revealed bald head. She points a shaking finger at me. "Th' persidend said he can't come."

"What?" my voices rises incredulously. "He said—"

"Don't yell at me!" Effie shouts back, her voice groggy. She cups her hands over her pinking ears. "I just—" she stops short, leans behind the tablecloth, and performs an unexpected binge and purge session. When she lifts up her head shakily, there is a drop of reddish-green vomit on the side of her mouth. Effie blinks and takes me and James in. And then she starts bawling.

Tears scamper down her caked face. "I—I am so, so, so sorry, Katniss!" She rubs her nose unceremoniously with the back of her hand. "I never thought that…I didn't think that this would happen! I thought you were safe because I never imagined this would happen." She reaches over, plucks Haymitch's bottle from his lips, and drains it in one gulp. She slams the glass bottle on the ground, and it shatters. I can feel the shards fall harmlessly around my feet.

She collapses back onto the table in a fit of tears. "I'm sorry, Katniss, I'm so sorry…I never thought…" she keeps murmuring into the tablecloth. When she says my name, it comes out strangled, sounding like _Catkneeezz_. Haymitch scowls at her for taking his alcohol, but reaches over and sets a large-set hand on her back and rubs it in rough circles. He looks up at us, deep raw bags under his eyes. He searches the car for a moment, then turns back to me and James.

"What happened?" James asks bluntly. He is nodding in the direction of Effie's racking sobs.

"She's drunk," I explain, and return my attention to Haymitch. But the half-drunk victor wasn't looking at me this time; no. He leans forward over the table, his arms still half-draped over Effie, and studies James's face carefully.

"So you're James." He starts.

Before Haymitch can finish, James immediately cuts in, "I don't like that name."

The half-drunk blinks. "Well. What do you want to be called?"

This set I-don't-like-James into a thoughtful position. He chewed slightly on his cheek and raised an eyebrow. "I always liked the name Iggy. I want to be called that."

I can't help but splutter into laughter. "Iggy? What kind of name is that?" Maybe Effie's drunkenness is rubbing off on me. Both Haymitch and Call-me-Iggy scowled at me. Well, at least, the blind one glared in my general direction.

"What kind of name is Katniss?" James—Iggy—shoots back.

Now it is my turn to look like a fish. I would tell him that in fact, I was named after a plant. However, I decide against it when I realize how ridiculous I would sound if I told James/Iggy I was named for a tuber.

Haymitch directs the conversation back to Mr. Griffiths. "So you're blind."

"Yes sir."

"What happened?"

"I…" he frowns, and turns his pupils' up to look at his temple, as if trying to dig up the memory with a stare. Finally, defeated, Iggy shoots an odd sort of glance at Haymitch's basic direction and shrugs. "I don't know. I think I was born with it. Or maybe I was looking at the sun too long, or something." He grins.

I roll my eyes. "He doesn't know how long he's lived in District 12 or who his parents are, either." I pitch in.

Haymitch frowns, trying to make sense of this information in his drunken state. "Huh. Well isn't that interesting."

That is when the food comes, and we start to eat. The cooks on the train must be the ones from my District tour, because the main course is lamb stew and rice. It is warm and smells delicious. From having eaten all of this loads of times before, and my renewed rolling stomach, I barely touch it. Jiggy, however, eats his whole serving, my serving, Effie's serving, five buttered rolls, three bowls of soup, and a whole pitcher of water. I watch this in amazement. So does Haymitch, until Effie Trinket rolls off her seat and bangs her head on the side of the car. My neighbor picks her up from the floor, slings her arm around his neck and bids us goodnight. And then he takes Effie to her room to sleep off her liquor. She sort of smiles at us as she leaves the dining car, her head lolling about as she prattles off about the Capitol.

I continue to sit next to James/Iggy and watch as he turns to me. "Is there any more food left? I'm starving."

My gaping mouth is lost on my blind companion. "The cooks can make whatever you'd like." I inform him.

"Good." He says, and shouts to no one in particular, "I've always wanted to try fried groosling decked out with garnishes and summer squash, and a huge chocolate ice cream sundae on the side. …Maybe two servings of each?"

The food comes, and then it is gone, disappeared into Jiggy's hollow leg. He seems to feel me looking at him, because after a while he turns to me and quips, "Even though I can eat a lot now doesn't mean that I can't survive without food. Just you wait, Miss Everdeen."

James/Iggy rises, and leaves the dining car from the same door as Haymitch and Effie left. As he exits I call after him, "That's the wrong way."

He swivels and walks the other way, his long legs causing him to be across the car in five steps. As he passes me, I hear him mutter under his breath, "I hate being blind."

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**Reviews would be absolutely fantabulous! :)**


	4. Plan

4. Plan

Peeta growls at his incompetence, and trashes his 11th cake of the day. He cannot focus without Katniss around, without thinking about the Peacekeeper's words. _Peeta Mellark will not be attending the 75__th__ Hunger Games as a consulting victor_… It has been just 12 hours since the train had left the station in District 12, without Peeta on it. Since then, he has been trying to decorate cakes and get his mind off of everything that was wrong in his life. So far, it hasn't been working.

The door creaks open and the victor tenses. He holds his decorating bag up as a weapon and narrows his eyes. "Who's there?"

A floorboard creaks. A shadow appears in the doorway.

"Don't come any closer!" Peeta's voice rises, his tone firm. He wasn't wavering. He wasn't going to back down, despite his lack of usable weapons. But Peeta was a survivor of the Hunger Games. He would make do. "I'm warning you…"

Gale, with his half-scowl, half- very annoying smirk, stands in the doorway. A knife glints at his side. "Careful. Wouldn't want to get _frosting_ in my hair."

Seeing Katniss's other option makes a dent in Peeta's heart, especially when Gale's face reminds him of the winter whip…Peeta can't even find a word to describe it. He tosses the bag onto the counter and stands his ground. "What are you doing here?"

The hunter just saunters into the room as if he owns the place, and leans against the counter. He peers into the garbage can at his side. Gale clucks his tongue, making Peeta clench his fists tighter in annoyance. "So many wasted cakes. What's wrong, lover boy? Did your girlfriend leave you again?" Even so, Gale's voice tightens at the mention of Katniss Everdeen.

"You should be talking," Peeta comments. Gale shoots him a look.

"And you should know that Katniss let herself walk into a trap," the hunter says back. He begins to run a hand along the blade of his knife, softly, as if tickling a baby. As if he is uninterested in what he is saying. But Gale is.

Peeta can't help it. But he doesn't know, and feels like he needs to. "What do you mean?" he asks suspiciously.

The older boy looks up, his smirk saying, _well isn't it obvious_? "President Snow knew that she felt responsible for you, baker boy. He knew that she would volunteer if your name was pulled out for the Games. He aims to kill Katniss this time."

A pause as Peeta lets this sink in. "Well what do you suppose we do? We can't just let her die." _She sacrificed herself for me_, the Mellark thought grimly. _She thought she owed it to me_. If only he had known why she had volunteered for him…but maybe it really was all a show.

"I'm glad you think this way," Gale flashes the baker a smile. "Because I am going to need you to help me get her back home."

Peeta strips himself of his apron and rolls up his sleeves. He looks Gale straight in his grey eyes. "Whatever it takes." There is a knowing smirk set upon the hunter's face, and he pushes himself off of the table. Peeta follows him out the door, ready to do whatever it took to save Katniss from the trap he had unknowingly pushed her in.

_You thought you owed it to me…now I owe this to you._

…

After being dragged from the train and prepped, I sit down with Cinna in the same red lounge chairs. He still looks the same, and I am thankful for something familiar to hold onto (Haymitch, although familiar, is not reliable).

Cinna says he has already made my costume for the chariots tonight, and can now talk for an hour before he and Portia had to get James/Iggy and I prepared. "This year we wanted to continue on with the fire theme as last year," Cinna explains to me. "But…it'll be quite difficult without…" his soothing voice trails off.

"Without…?" I press on. But I already know who it is.

"When Portia found out that Peeta would not be in the Quarter Quell, she started bawling." Cinna would not look at me, but at the ground just beneath my feet. It made him seem lost in thought. "Partly because he didn't have to die, partly because you and he would not be together, but mostly because she can't work with him."

"Oh." I never knew that Peeta and Portia had ever been close, like Cinna and I. I never really thought of it that way. I guess that last year, I was too wrapped in myself to care about Peeta and the people he came in contact with. That was why I had volunteered for him, I remind myself. This year I wasn't going to care about myself and my life. I am not the oblivious 16-year-old I was last Games.

"Besides, she likes feedback; and James…well…" Cinna smiled in a sad sort of way.

"Yes, I know." I say. "Iggy is blind." I say bluntly. Now I wonder where he is, if they are still waxing or if he is feeling uncomfortable that Portia is sizing him up and he cannot do the same.

"Iggy?" Cinna asks. His lips break into a half-smile, as if what I have said is amusing. I guess, in a way, it is.

"Yes, Iggy. That is what he wants to be called." I wrap my robe tighter around myself when Portia bursts through the doors, raggedly breathing and looking absolutely distraught.

"I need your help!" she cries breathlessly. Her plea for help is directed towards Cinna.

He stands, a pursed-lip look of concern rising with him. "What is it?"

Portia's wide eyes just stare at her partner, and she beckons him to follow. Without a word, the woman runs out of the room and out of sight. Cinna turns to me, an apologizing look in his flecked eyes.

I manage a small smile as a worry erupts inside of me. "I'll be here when you get back," I assure my friend. He nods thankfully and sprints from the room; his shoes can be heard down the hall as he yanks open the door and is out of sight.

I sit on the couch for what seems like forever, contemplating what is so bad that Portia needed Cinna's assistance. I know it must be an utterly confusing and complicated situation; Portia can usually manage.

Finally, Cinna, looking slightly broken down and washed over, returns with his small prep group. They flock around me, my oddly colored birds, tweeting and gossiping all about things of which I cannot, for the life of me, understand. So I smile and watch as they slick on a plain-colored lipstick fleck it with indigo liner, smudge soft blue and glowing yellow eye shadow and shove me into a shimmering skin-tight outfit. Just as the last Games, my hair is pulled back into my braid.

They set a mirror in front of me and I can't help it; Cinna has outdone himself once again. The colors of the outfit are shimmering, pulsating. It is a deep blue, almost purple, flame, and as the fabric moves towards the inside it turns from blue to orange to yellow. The sleeves are cut in the middle at the shoulder, flare out, and then cinch back at the wrist, something that Cinna refers to as a "Greek style." The long flowing skirt has slits on either sides, and at the ends is jagged in a way that it comes off as flickering blue flames. Underneath I am wearing charcoal leggings where they are 'cut off' at the ankles, and replaced with a skin-colored fabric in the design intricate lace. I am not wearing shoes, but it adds to the effect. Pearls dot the top of my head.

I am escorted to the stable full of the chariots and tributes and the same well-trained horses as last year. Iggy is waiting for me with Portia, who is sweating nervousness but seems to be glowing. She greets Cinna with a smile and squeals, "Don't you both look marvelous!" in her high Capitol voice.

As I climb onto the chariot, Iggy jests, "If only I knew what an idiot I looked like right now." I turn to face him, amusement of which he cannot see set upon my face. He, in fact, doesn't look like an idiot at all. James Griffiths is quite dazzling, in his similar toga, and his hair is shot up in a way that it really does look like orange flames, with tiny dots of pearls at the tips.

"For the record, you look great," I say back, and he grins at me, his face suddenly tinged red. As we wait, I see myself again in a mirror. We look like two burning flames pulled straight from the hearth. For effect, without Portia or Cinna telling me to, I have a bold idea. I stand on my toes (Jiggy is that tall) and whisper it in his ear. It is brilliant, it is daring, and it is even more audacious than holding hands. Much more. This will be one of the last things I do before I go into the Hunger Games that will show that I am much more than they think I am. _That I'm not just a part of their Games_…Peeta's words, not mine.

Just before we go out into the parade, Cinna grins at me and gives me a thumbs-up. His face is the last thing I see before I go into the Capitol.

* * *

**So I changed things up a bit, regarding Cinna's clothing and such. I figured, without Peeta, the outfit just wouldn't work. What did you think?**


	5. Meet

5. Meet

The District 12 chariot goes out in front us, but we are not in it. As soon as the chariot is within Capitol range, the crowds before us go silent in wonder. Where are the District 12 tributes? I can hear Cinna and Portia gasp behind us while watching a screen void of Iggy and me.

"Ready?" I ask him.

"Let's go," he nods back, and we walk out into the parade.

Instantly all eyes are on us. People gasp. I can almost feel Snow's glare train on me, but I am far beyond caring. We decided to play on Iggy's blindness. I am in front, leading him as he stares ahead blankly. I pull him by the wrist lightly as we trail behind our chariot.

The streets are still silent. We are two flickering flames in a dark street, close to each other, pulsing in the lamplight and the eyes of the Capitol. In my mind, I am President Snow, and Iggy is the rest of Panem. I am leading him blindly towards the Games.

It is brilliant.

I do not look at the crowds around me. I stare straight ahead, towards my destination. Finally, I hear someone ask loudly, "Is that…" And another voice, "It is!" and a third, "It's Katniss! Katniss Everdeen!"

"It's the girl on fire!"

And suddenly the crowds are cheering again. We have claimed every right to this attention. Tomorrow we will be the talk of the town, the 'tributes able to walk on their own two feet.' I can almost imagine the faces of amazement at our audaciousness back home. When we finally reach the end of our walk, my uncovered feet are cold and numb, and I imagine Iggy's must be, too. Before we go inside, I turn back, flash a single small smile to the crowd and blow a single kiss. It is aimed to pierce President Snow right in the heart, bearing one message and one message only:

I might be going into the Games, but you can't think for a second that you can control me.

And then we are inside, and the doors close behind us, and I release a heavy breath. "We did it!" I am relieved, and can't help but laugh out all of my pent-up nervousness. But it worked. My plan worked.

We reach Cinna, Portia, and Haymitch, and my stylist is shining me a knowing smile. As if I seem to now know something special. But I don't. "That was amazing." Cinna's voice is confident, reassuring.

"Amazing?" Haymitch guffaws and claps Iggy heartily on the back. "It was daring and beautiful! Perfect for what we need! Maybe you'll actually get some sponsors this year," he jokes, but I am not laughing.

It is not funny. My heart is still beating terribly fast, and now that the parade is over worry sets in. Snow knows my act of rebellion was meant for him and him only. He could do anything to me; to my family, my friends. I can only hope he doesn't.

Suddenly Iggy taps me twice on the shoulder, bringing my attention from my worries to him. I glance up at his face, bathed in his flamed hair and outfit, and see his ears perk up slightly. I hone in, too, and pick out a young boy's voice. "I recognize that voice," Iggy says for only me to hear. No one else in our little District 12 group notices.

"The boy's?" I breathe back.

"Yes. It is coming from the west, 10 o'clock." He places a hand on my head, seemingly to turn it the boy's direction, which is easy because I only come up to his collar bone. He sucks in a gasp, and snatches his hand back.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Your hair! It's…it's brown. Dark brown! Like chocolate coffee." He turns over his palm, as if trying to study it, which of course he cannot.

"Well, of course." Then what he says hits me. "You know what color my hair is?" I am incredulous, stunned.

"Yeah I…I guess I do." He reaches over and presses his fingertips lightly to my face. They are kind of clammy, but after a moment his pads feel warm. "You're kind of an olive-skin." He points up a single finger and pokes me in the eye.

"Ow!"

"Grey! You're eyes are grey!" Iggy exclaimed excitedly.

Frowning, I hold a hand up to my eye. "Great. Now that you know what color I am, can we get back to your voice?" I grumble. I know my once gorgeous makeup must be smeared with the sudden tears and Jiggy's probing finger.

"Right…he's moved five feet to the left now…he's talking to that District 1 tribute. She sounds familiar as well…" His voice fades off dreamily as I drag him over to the boy. He is as tall as the other girl, and is dressed in a black leotard blinking with a variety of colored lights, to show the power his district must provide. His face is overly dramatized with bright eye shadow. It distorts his seemly young face to be a thousand years older than he really is. She is in a beautiful feathery white dress with gold accents. Her light brown hair is set in defined ringlets. The young girl leaves as Jiggy and I enter.

Iggy doesn't bother with small talk. "I know you." He states bluntly.

The boy looks up. He has blue eyes lighter than Peeta's, the color of the sky. He studies Iggy carefully, going from the bare feet all the way up to his strawberry blonde hair, and then back to his eyes. "I think I know you, too."

"You know I'm blind, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

A pause. "Oh. You do?"

"Sure." The kid flashes him a grin that Jiggy can't see. "Do you like exploding stuff?"

My District partner parts his lips into a smile. "Who doesn't?"

I tap him twice on the shoulder. "I'll be elsewhere." I tell Iggy, and withdraw myself. I watch my new opponents carefully, hawk-like. Haymitch is talking to a dark-skinned man with a glass bottle and one arm. The man says something, and the two drunkards collapse into laughter. Next to them there are two similar-looking people from District 3, standing idly by, taking in the scenery. Like I am. The girl with the ringlets is making small talk with the beautiful mocha-colored girl from District 11. Just seeing the Rue-like figure brings slight pricks to my eyes. She is wearing a golden dress of shimmering wheat, and a wreath of freshly-picked grain is set over her straightened hair. She smiles a little. Some—most—of these people aren't afraid of death, I realize as I watch them. They are just like Iggy. Brave.

That is when I bump into another tall man—boy—and I turn to face him. "Sorry," I mumble. He looks as if he could be from the Seam, with his black-brown hair and slightly-olive skin. The only thing that is different is his deep, dark eyes. He nods at me wordlessly. I half-step back and take him in. He is wearing a bark-like fabric all over his front and back, and from his arms and head sprout clouds of what seems to be bright green leaves. His feet are covered in tree root-like shoes.

I look back up at the boy and suppress a grin. "District 7, I'm guessing?"

He nods. "Goddamn stylists," he groans.

"It's always 'trees this' and 'trees that,' all because we're the lumbering district!" an unknown voice laments. She comes into view, wearing a similar outfit as my companion. The only difference in her costume is that it clings to her curves, making her look more like a woman than tree. She sticks her right branch out for me to shake. "Johanna, District 7. God, as soon as I get out of here I am ripping this stupid costume off, right, _Fang_?" She emphasizes his name, and it makes me wonder if it is really the boy's name after all, or if he had changed it, like Iggy did.

The boy rolls his eyes, obviously agitated by his District cohort as I shake her hand carefully. Johanna smiles at me, deceit lacing her eyes. "Don't you worry, Katniss. You won't have to worry about the Games much longer. I don't think you'll last _this_ one, anyways." With that, she drops my hand and traipses away as well as a tree could.

I turn to Fang for some sort of explanation. He just shrugs. "All train ride all she could talk about was the Games. Annoying, really." The tree walks off. Behind him, leaning against the food table, someone smiles at me, and winks.

* * *

**So the gang's almost all here. And I think we know who that last winking guy is. COUGHCOUGHfinnick**

**I know that things are going a little slow, but they will pick up, I promise :) Thanks for reading!**


	6. And Greet

6. And Greet

They left the morning after the parade, like the whisper of a shadow, off to save the one person they both fell in love with. Gale decides to follow the train tracks through Panem towards the Capitol. "It will take a while," he admits when they start off. "But it is the only sure-fire way to get to Catnip."

"Who?" Peeta asks. Unable to contain his emotions, confusion dips low over the baker's face.

The hunter just smiles devilishly at his not-exactly-wanted companion. "Don't you have a pet name for _your_ Katniss dear?" He adjusts the strap of his weapon on his belt, and then hooks his thumbs in between the straps of his backpack of food; Peeta carries the tarp and water.

The baker rolls his eyes and turns back towards the track they are following, cutting off the conversation at that.

A mockingjay sang out in the woods surrounding, momentarily breaking the awkward silence that lay over the land. Peeta groans inwardly when his annoying companion starts to whistle obnoxiously back. The blonde one nudges him harshly in the shoulder. "Stop that! Are you trying to get us killed?" Gale stops whistling because he is smirking, having won whatever game he thought they were playing. The mockingjay responds, but gets no answer.

Peeta did not yet know that nothing was there to watch the boys carefully; nothing but the little bug cameras buzzing around. The ones Gale knew to look out for. The ones the letters from 13 told him about.

Gale smiles. "Me? Get us killed? Not in a million years, lover boy."

The other District 12 boy groans again, this time out loud.

This is going to be a long, agonizing trip.

…

I awaken to a pounding on the door, and my eyes shoot open. I am in my bed in the Capitol. The same exact one as last year, just with different bedding and colors. After the parade, after that idiot Finnick asking if I wanted a sugar cube, after Chaff kissed me and after Johanna stripped down in front of me (and then proceeded to try and take off Fang's—he bit her to fend his District partner off), I managed to get up to the 12th floor in one piece. I removed my makeup and the silky dress and collapsed onto the bed. For a moment, I wished that I had Peeta to fall into bed next to. And then I shook the thought off.

It was all a show, put on for President Snow. That's all it was.

The unknown door-banger comes once again, and I yell back, "I'm up! I'm up." And I am. I am up out of bed and pulling on the training clothes that lay on the cabinet. I take out the rest of the pearls I couldn't last night, jam my feet into some boots and go out to the dining table.

There is a spread of food already there, and it's already half-gone. Iggy hears me coming and looks up, his cheeks puffed out with what I guess is porridge and biscuits. He grins and proves me right. "Morning," he says happily, and goes back to eating. Effie sits across from my strawberry blonde partner and wrinkles her nose.

"Oh, District 12…" she mutters so that only I can hear her. _Oh, Effie Trinket._ I go and take my place next to Iggy. The first thing that I go for is the hot chocolate. It's as good as last time and leaves me satisfied. I go to pour myself a second cup when Effie snaps out her hand and slaps away mine. "You need to eat real food!" she shrills. She sounds like a mother pig, squealing at her piglets to come for supper.

I don't know where this analogy comes from, but it makes me smile. "Yes, mother pig," I murmur for only the boy next to me. The next minute is taken by sounds of Iggy attempting at composure as he chokes on his food, he laughs so hard. Effie just furrows her little brow and frowns.

This is when Haymitch decides to stumble in. He looks up at Effie scowling, Iggy smothering his laughter in food, and finally at me. I reach for the bacon across the table with a straight face. Our mentor sits down across from me and for a second watches me eat.

I blink at him, and swallow my bacon. "What?"

"Training," he grunts. "Same as last year. Mostly. Make friends. I think you'll need them this time."

"Fine—"

"No. Not 'fine.' 'Ok, Haymitch.' 'Anything you say, Haymitch.' But not. Fine." Haymitch growls at me. He is leaning over the table, his chin just hovering over the scrambled groosling eggs.

"Anything you say, Haymitch," I bobble my head for emphasis, but even so, I listen. I am nervous. This is odd. I know that the competition is tough; but the competition was tough last year, too. And I made it through alright.

After breakfast, we go down to the training center. As Iggy and I ride down the elevator from the 12th floor, I braid my hair into my basic braid. When we reach the center, the rest of the tributes are waiting for us. Iggy grins when he hears the small blonde boy call his name, and wanders over. I follow, remembering Haymitch's comment. The girl from District 1 regards me warmly as I pass; without her makeup and dazzling gold accents, she looks thirteen, maybe older. Next to Finnick is his district partner, the small blonde girl. She is passing her eyes over me when I look over at her; for a moment she concentrates her eyes on my face, and then grins. The wheat girl from District 11, Nudge, is pulling her hair into a ponytail next to her.

The elevator opens once more, revealing Johanna and Fang. She is laughing at him when he ducks out as quickly as he can. Johanna swaggers over to me, the smile still sitting daringly on her face. "Fang's such an ass," she says loud enough for the entire room to hear, but Johanna Mason is speaking to me. "He wouldn't let me play with his luscious hair," she shoots across the room to where the poor boy is leaning against the wall. It is true; he does have a grand head of black hair that trails to his mid-back. Hidden behind the tree costume, I did not see it last night, but I do now.

"Aren't they going to cut it off?" I ask Johanna, mildly curious.

"Oh yeah," Johanna responds. "He wouldn't get any sponsors with that long tail trailing down his back," she shoots a look at him once more. "They're going to cut it right before the interviews, so everyone can see. I can't wait." The District 7 victor waggles her eyebrows and turns her attention to the head trainer. I turn too, and can't help but think that I _don't_ want her as an ally in the Arena.

After we are dismissed, I almost have to drag Iggy from that little boy. "Oh, come on, Katniss!" he complains. "Gazzy and I—we were just talking!"

"And now you're leaving," I quip, and pull him over to the hand-to-hand combat section. I want to know how good the blind boy was at combat, because I fear the worst. The blonde District 5 boy, Gazzy, follows, along with the girl with glass blue eyes and weird sort of grin. Together, it would be hard to deny that they were related other than the fact that they were from different Districts.

"This is Gasman, or Gazzy, and that's Angel," Iggy says, right on cue, as they step forward. He perks up his ears to listen. "Hand-to-hand combat? Why…" his voice trails off when he finds out why I have brought him here. Iggy turns to face me, his face turning pink. "You think I can't fight?"

In turn, I bloom the same shade. "Well it's not like I've ever seen you!" I widen my eyes for emphasis, the gesture lost on Iggy. I blink my eyes back to normal when I remember.

The little blonde smiles at me in a knowing way and steps forward. "It's okay, District 12." He gets up on the platform. My district partner follows without a word. Gazzy falls into a fighting stance. "Just watch and learn."

So I do. The two trainers come at the boys, and from where I stand with my arms crossed I see Gazzy move his lips just slightly. When the trainers are two feet away, Iggy leaps up, as if he weighs nothing, snaps a perfectly aimed foot into a face, comes down, and shatters the poor man's eardrums. The trainer staggers back, and when he does, Iggy roundhouse kicks him in the chest, and I wince when I hear the all-too familiar _crack_ of ribs. The man falls, blood pooling from his broken nose. Immediately after that, the second trainer falls; he is in the same condition. I gape at the two boys grinning at each other on the platform as they high-five. "That was awesome!" I hear Gazzy squeal.

As the boys come down, I look over at the small District 4 girl, who was already gazing at me intently. Odd. "They are quite good, aren't they?" she asks, ever the chipper one. I refrain from asking Angel how old she was, but she seems to already have an answer. "I'm 12. At least…" she frowns. "I think so."

"Oh." I can't muster anything else. She seems younger, like Rue did. Still innocent.

"Don't worry, Katniss," Angel puts on a, well, angelic smile and skips off somewhere else. "I'm not as innocent as you think." she calls over her shoulder.

I stand there, staring after the skipping little girl, lost in thought. From the back, she almost looks like Prim…I blink after Angel, but she is going off to the knot-tying station with the Nudge girl. My body makes a decision to move forward, but just as I do, Iggy grabs me by the hand, and pulls me to our next station, away from the curious tribute from District 4.


	7. Walk

7. Walk

The girl struggles against her chains; her brown eyes squeezes tight as she yells. Her wrists are raw from struggling against the chains binding her to the sterile table. No one else is in the room except for her and her screams.

"LET. ME. OUT!"

Her brown hair is greasy and, although once sun-streaked and gorgeous, hangs loosely from her scalp in clumps. A part in the back has been shaven off, and in its place is a throbbing row of stitches. As she continues to bang her head on the table, the neat line begins to bubble with crimson and loosen.

"FANG!" she cries, but the name falls on no ears but her own. "NUDGE! GAZZY! ANGEL! IGGY!" she yells out, searching in vain for her flock. "Anyone?" she finally whimpers, defeated. She was alone in a medic-smelling room with no one but herself to talk to. "Who are you, anyways?" she snarls to the ceiling, going on the offensive. "A scientists that paid billions of dollars just to have me chained up in a room? Another crazy scientist who wants to _dissect my brain_?"

The door creaks open. "Oh, we already did that." There is a sense of gloating in his voice. The girl scowls in his general direction, and juts her chin away, showcasing either her hate for the voice, or her lack of cooperation, or both.

"Don't be like that, Ma—"

"Don't say my name!" she yells, loud enough for her voice to pulse through the room. "Don't ever say my name again." she breaks down to a whisper. A tear slips beneath her lashes and pools onto the table below, so that he does not see. He reaches over to clear way the tear track. Helpless and cornered, she lets him.

Jeb sighs in slight frustration and relief, and begins to unlatch the cuffs around her ankles. "Come on, Max," he says softly. "Let's go for a walk."

…

"A walk? Why would I want to go for a walk?" I ask, slightly aggravated. Iggy was begging me to take him down to see his friend, but I wasn't budging—and neither were Effie and Haymitch.

"You're not allowed to fraternize with the competition!" she chirps, and ladles another spoon of soup into her mouth. I think about pointing out that Haymitch wants us to make some friends, but I decide to push that back when I look at Effie. Her smile's widening by the second, which means that she's pissed.

Iggy, having finished his soup (and about three extra servings), slumps down in his seat and narrows his eyes in Effie's direction. "You guys eat too slow," he grumbles.

"Would you like another loaf of bread while you wait?" I put down my spoon and reach out to grab a green-tinted roll. He shrugs a yes. I lock eyes with Haymitch and mouth silently, _watch this_.

With that, I throw the District 4 bread at Iggy. He reaches up a hand almost leisurely and snaps the bread out of the air. "Seaweed green," he mumbles, and stuffs the entire roll into his mouth.

Haymitch has stopped drinking. Even Effie, who was, a minute ago, fuming, is looking at Iggy, her mouth gaping open in bewilderment. The spoon she is holding tips and spills its contents back into the bowl. She, nervously, reaches her napkin up and pats her lilac lips. "Um," she starts off in a high pitch. "How…how did you do that?"

Swallowing the lump of bread down, Iggy takes a cleaned rib bone and begins to pick his teeth with it. I am glad he is blind, for Effie is now shooting him a look that would set you aflame; the distaste in it was so obvious. "Do what?"

"The bread…how did you…?" Haymitch attempts at explaining. I notice the slur of his voice is thicker than usual; he's been hitting the bottles hard. And so soon, too. Last year he managed to put off drinking until the Games had begun. It is obvious to me that Haymitch doesn't think the girl of fire and her blind companion will make it out. He doesn't think we will survive. I remember how easily Iggy took down the trainer today, and I harden my look at things. Haymitch is wrong. He always is, and always will be, no matter how much I might see eye-to-eye with him.

"Oh. That? I just…I dunno. I just…the trajectory…whistling in my ear…I just…I dunno. It's just…built into me, I guess." Iggy shrugs again, and leans forward on the dining table, kicking his unused fork off. He leans out of sight to retrieve it, and suddenly the room is filled with smoke.

"Goodness!" Effie coughs somewhere to the right.

"…the hell?" Haymitch grunts to my left.

Suddenly I feel something pull me under the table by my pant leg. "Oof!" I am face-to-face with Iggy on all fours. _Follow me_, he mouths, and crawls just under the smoke screen I assume he set off. Just under the radar, we creep towards the elevator. I reach up and press the 'down' button and we scramble inside. Once the doors close with a _ding_, I think I hear Effie screech, "Don't you dare—!"

But we are safe from her wrath, and heading down. Iggy brushes his fingers against my forearm and points towards the glowing buttons. "5. He's on level 5." He almost whispers, as if he is afraid of the elevator. I guess, in a way, he must be, because he cannot see where we are going; only feel the gears shift and the elevator move either up or down. He gulps as I press the button labeled '5' and the elevator continues to move down.

It _ding_s, and opens on District 5's floor. The feel of it is completely different than our floor, with dancing colors sweeping across the floor and ceiling and every wall. The window showcases the Capitol below, just beginning to light up against the night. Other than that, the layout is an exact replica of the 12th floor, with the dining table across from me and a couple of steps up, and behind that is the television hanging from the wall, and on the other side is the hall leading to the tribute quarters. There is no one in the room that we can see, and it just feels odd. Suddenly the blonde boy, Gazzy pops his head out from the hallway, his face glowing. "Did it work?" he calls to us. Iggy grins at the sound of his friend, and begins to walk over to his new friend.

As he walks past me, I think I see the faint outline of something between Iggy's back and shirt, and it almost looks like…I rub my eyes and look again, and see nothing. It must be the fatigue. Sucking at the food between my teeth, I follow my district partner up the stairs and to Gazzy.

"Of course!" Iggy exclaims, and high-fives the boy. Watching them, I once more forget that the strawberry blonde one is blind.

"What worked?" I ask as I jog up the steps.

"The smoke bomb!" Gazzy grins.

It took a moment for this to sink in. "Wait. You made the smoke screen?"

Now he looks sheepish. "Well, sort of…I mean, I've always been good with stuff like this. It kind of comes naturally to me. I had brought along a little side-project before I left…" he gulps down before continuing. "…anyways, and I couldn't get the bomb to ignite, so I asked Iggy for help and—"

"And then all I had to do was connect the two wires on the inside before lighting the bomb up and—_psssssssssh_!" Iggy, now equally excited as his partner in crime. He used his hands to demonstrate the effects.

Now I know what they were so excitedly tittering about during lunch. I never knew Iggy was into creating bombs of this manner. What am I saying? I didn't even know Iggy existed before the reaping. I lean back against the wall and straddle my feet between two steps. "If all you're going to talk about making weapons, I think I'll be leaving now."

The boys exchanged a suddenly uneasy glance; well, uneasy looks, since Iggy can't exactly glance at much. Gazzy is the first to turn back to me, his face full of pleading. "Please, don't go Katniss! We need your help."

"With what?"

Gazzy licks his lips nervously. "Do you know how to reinstate memories?"

* * *

**So Max's been introduced. But where is she, exactly?**


	8. Sing

**Dislclaimer: The song featured in this chapter and in the rest of this fic is called "The Three Singing Birds" by James Reeves. So I don't own that either.**

* * *

8. Sing

We sat in the middle of Gazzy's room in a tight circle. It still reeked of god-knows-what, but at least Gazzy sprayed it down with deodorizer before we came in. Now I know why they call him 'the Gasman.'

"So how exactly do you expect me to 'reinstate your memories'?" I ask and brush the hair out of my eyes.

"Well, you could hypnotize us." The youngest suggests. It earns him raised eyebrows from both me and Iggy. He blushes and curls into himself, but not without a smirk. "What? I'm just saying."

I turn my attention back to the spot on the ceiling I've been focusing on and try to pry an idea from it. After deodorizing his room, Gazzy had suggested that a cold water shock could work; all we got was a fuming Iggy soaking wet as a result.

"You are now getting veeeeeeery sleeeeeeeeeepy…" Iggy drones, and pretends to sway an amulet back and forth with his hand. The Gasman laughs.

After the novelty of Iggy's act subsides, we return to brainstorming. I am not quite sure why they want to bring back some memories. The hurried explanation Gazzy told me while we crept under the radar (his district escort had entered the room) was that neither Iggy nor Gazzy knew how or why they knew each other, but they just had a feeling it hadn't started with the parade. Something had to have happened before, separating the now inseparable friends, but they didn't know what. "And I have a feeling…a feeling that we're missing someone." Gazzy had added on in a sort of hushed voice. In the background, Iggy nodded in agreement. "Like we are almost all here…but not exactly. Someone—something—is missing."

To pass the time, I begin to hum a random tune, hoping the notes will help me focus in on an answer.

That is when Gazzy's blue eyes brighten. "That's it!" He scrambles up to sit back on his heels and looks at me excitedly. And the he turns to Iggy. "Did you feel it?"

"What? Feel what?" I ask, but am ignored.

My district partner widens his eyes in return. "Yeah! That's perfect! I can't believe I didn't think of it!"

"What? Think of what?" I inquire again, but this time I am cut off by Gazzy.

"I thought I saw something when she started—"

"—I could feel something shift inside me, like—" Iggy continues the excited banter back and forth between the two boys. It is almost as if they share a brain.

"—it's like a veil is being lifted…" Gazzy ends wistfully. The air is silent for a moment, leaving me to stare at them in shock. The youngest blinks a little, and turns to stare at me, his eyes hardening slightly. "You stopped singing. She stopped singing. _Why_ did you stop singing?" he demands.

I sit back on my hands, more befuddled that before. "I was never—"

"What song was it?" Iggy asks, his voice so soft it breaks down the raised voices. I look over at him. He is looking at the floor, his hands just gripping the rug beneath. Just under his breath, I hear him whisper, "Lime green…"

His ability to cling onto something that was no longer his gave me strength. I close my eyes and recall the only happy song I had in my limited revenue; the one that I had been humming. Opening my mouth, I begin to sing.

"_The King walked in his garden green_

_Where grew a marvelous tree;_

_And out of its leaves came singing birds_

_By one, and two and three._

"_The first bird had wings of white,_

_The second had wings of gold,_

_The third had wings of deepest blue_

_Most beauteous to behold._

"_The white bird flew to the northern land,_

_The gold bird flew to the west,_

_The blue bird flew to the cold, cold south_

_Where never bird might rest._

"_The King waited a twelvemonth long,_

_Till back the three birds flew,_

_The lighted down upon the tree,_

_The white, the gold, and the blue._

"_The white bird brought a pearly seed_

_And gave it to the King;_

_The gold bird from out of the west_

_He brought a golden ring._

"_The third bird with feathers blue_

_Who came from the far cold south,_

_A twisted sea-shell smooth and grey_

_He carried in his mouth._

"_The King planted the pearly seed_

_Down in his garden green,_

_And up there sprang a pearl-white maid,_

_The fairest ever seen…_

"_Instead she took the grey sea-shell_

_And held it to his ear,_

_She pressed it close and soon the King_

_A strange, sweet song did hear._

"_He raised the fair maid by the hand_

_Until she stood at his side;_

_Then he gave her the golden ring_

_And took her for his bride._

"_And at their window sang the birds,_

_They sang the whole night through,_

_Then off they went at break of day,_

_The white, the gold, and the blue."_

…

"That was…"

"Magnificent." Iggy finishes, his voice just a light breeze against the silence that had issued the room. "What…what was it?"

"The Three Singing Birds." I speak just as low as he. Iggy raises his head, a pleasant, almost peaceful aura settling upon him. Gazzy has the same faint smile on his face. Without me realizing it, both boys had lay down on the soft rug beneath us and closed their eyes, letting their ears soak in the words and form them into keys that would possibly open the bolted doors of their memory. It had most definitely opened mine.

I see my father in front of me, sitting on Gazzy's bed. He smiles at me, a twinkle in his eye. _Beautiful_, he whispers to me. _Simply beautiful._ I close my eyes so that the boys do not see the accumulating tears. They might have heard just my voice, but while I sang of birds and kings, I swear my father's baritone was saddling alongside mine, just heard below my voice and in perfect harmony.

…

Peeta's ears prick up in the middle of the night, and he turns to look behind. The fire in front is crackling, the smoke just visible as it rises into the canopy of the forest and carries tiny glowing embers with it. "Did you hear that?" he asks.

The hunter, who is lying on his side and sharpening his knife, doesn't look up. "Don't be spooked, lover boy. It's just the woods." He continues to run the sharpening block over the blade.

"No, it's not that, it's…" Peeta closes his eyes to the warmth flickering in front of him, and drinks in the night air between Districts 11 and 12. He leans back against his tree. He doesn't open his eyes as he speaks. "I can almost hear her. Katniss, I mean. She's singing." He smiles slightly, the ghost of laughter stretching across his face. "It's a beautiful song. Simply beautiful."

Gale looks up for an instant when the baker's eyes are still closed. He frowns in disappointment, and goes back to his grinding. Peeta opens his eyes and continues to look up at the stars poking through the trees. Gale doesn't say anything because he _hadn't_ heard his Catnip sing, and can't help but bring back Coin's discouraging words:

"_They are the star-crossed lovers. A match made in heaven. You are a great man, Gale Hawthorne, but you were never made to love an Everdeen._"

* * *

**I can promise that the song that Katniss sang will be coming up in later chapters :)**

**Thoughts?**


	9. Form

9. Form

The second day of training begins with Haymitch. The 12th floor is still smoky from Iggy's bomb, but I don't complain, or notice. After breakfast, my mentor takes me aside and says, "Find allies today. No exceptions. Get at least a few to get you through the first couple of days."

"Yes, Haymitch," I mock, but don't smile.

"And sweetheart?" his breath smells of alcohol, something stronger than usual, stronger than the liquor at the Hob.

"Yes, Haymitch?"

"Try and be nice."

I don't respond.

The training room is basically empty when Iggy and I get there except for Gazzy. My district partner is unusually quiet, as is his companion. Neither of them told me whether or not my song worked, but as I stand with them in a triangle on the side of the room, I can't help but think how much we remind me of the three singing birds.

_The first bird had wings of white,_

_The second had wings of gold,_

_The third had wings of deepest blue_

_Most beauteous to behold…_

Without knowing it, I have started to hum, and leave the two boys suddenly on the ground, gasping for air.

"Please," Gazzy's voice is thin, each syllable ground out, as if he is in pain. "Stop, Katniss…"

"Katniss, please!" It is a strangled cry from my blind partner. There are pinpricks of light in his unseeing eyes, and on cue they start to roll down his cheeks, streaking him with the watery marks of a victim.

I stop when Gazzy pleads me to, but that doesn't cease the withered cries of the boys. As Johanna enters the room, she heads straight for me, a smirk playing upon her slightly parted lips. Just acknowledging her presence irritates something inside me, and I clench my hands into fists. "Wow, Everdeen. What did you do to them?"

Fang stays behind slightly, taking in everything. I look over at him, his dark eyes still raking over the boys on the ground. He mumbles incoherently, his lips barely moving.

"Hmm?" I ask, and tilt my head in a question.

The dark one slips over silently and repeats, "_Then off they went at break of day,_

_The white, the gold, and the blue._"

Instantly the suffering at my feet stops. They groan. Gazzy rolls over onto his stomach and touches his cheek to the cold ground. "What the—"

"What's wrong with you two?" Angel's voice, ever chipper, asks. We all turn to see the smiling blonde girl and Finnick enter the room.

"Come on, Everdeen," he smiles at me, as if we share a secret. "Save the fighting for the Arena, won't you?"

I roll my eyes, and swivel to help Iggy up. The rest of the tributes begin to file in, and I watch every single one of them with a careful eye. Haymitch told me I need to pick a few allies to keep me alive. As if reading my thoughts once more, Angel turns to me as we head off towards the camouflage booth and grins. "Of course I'll be your ally, Katniss." She flits away, almost hovering over the ground.

…

"Fang?" I hear Gazzy call from the camouflage station. "Faaaaaaang?" The young boy, as if he's already forgotten his episode, looks at me. "Have you seen Fang?"

"I'm right here!" his exasperate voice sounds before I can open my mouth. We both whip around to face Fang. It had come from the faux forest, but there was nobody there to match the voice.

"Sure you are," Gazzy replies, and rolls his eyes.

We hear a groan. "No, I'm serious!" There is a shift on the trunk to the right. We both look to see Fang appear out of thin air, leaning against the trunk. He was wearing all black.

"How did you do that?" I ask.

Iggy walks up behind me and Gazzy. "Do what?" his mouth sounds full of food.

"He just appeared out of nowhere!" Gazzy supplies him with an answer. "Fang—he was just talking to us, but we couldn't see him. So he just—and then—he was right there!" Gazzy, in his excitement, points towards the darkly dressed boy in front of us.

My blind friend turns the opposite direction. "Over here?" he inquires ironically.

I jab Gazzy in the ribs with my elbow. "No," I say, and pull Iggy in the right direction. "_That_ is where he disappeared, like magic."

Fang shoots me a dark look at the word _magic_, and I return him a darker one. The boy stalks off, his long black hair swaying behind him.

I feel a hand on my elbow. Iggy draws me towards him and slams me into his chest. "I know who I want as allies." He whispers into my hair. "Chocolate coffee," I feel him exhale once more against my scalp.

"Who's that?"

"What? No! That's not a person, idiot."

"I'm not an idiot." I fume back indignantly.

"Just being realistic here, Everdeen. No, I want—"

"Gazzy, Angel, Fang, and the District 11 girl." I chance, rolling my eyes.

"And Ella." Iggy's face fills with confusion. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." I brush off his question. "Who's Ella?"

He pinks slightly. "District 1."

"Fine. But I want Finnick. And Beetee and Wiress."

"The _crazy _woman?"

"Of course." I snap back, raging at the fact that Iggy had questioned my request.

"Fine."

We pause.

"You know that's basically half the tributes, right?" I look up at my partner.

He beams at me. If he had given the look to anyone else, Iggy would look innocent. "This is gonna be fun."

…

I ask Finnick, and he accepts. "Looks like the blue bird's finally branching out for help." Johanna, who had been listening in, butts in and smirks.

"What's that?" I ask, and try to make my voice sound as dangerous as I can. Simultaneously, Finnick thrusts a carefully-placed elbow into Johanna's ribcage. They exchange a look of both rage and wide eyes. I watch them carefully. Finnick widens his eyes even more, and pushes up his eyebrows.

She leans over the table towards me, and in a sing-song voice whispers "_The third had wings of deepest blue, most beauteous to behold_." Johanna Mason is still smiling as she sits back. The lyrics confuse me, but I don't let it show. Since when has everyone known about that song? Thanking Finnick a final time, I get up and meet Iggy and Gazzy on the other side of the cafeteria.

"He's in?" Iggy asks without looking up from his bread.

I touch a roll to my lips and grin into it. "Of course. How about yours?" I take a bite of the District 11 bread.

"We've got them," Gazzy answers for me, and takes a slow sip from his water.

Pushing the bread to one side of my mouth, I suppress a smile. Haymitch would be so surprised to find I actually listened to him.

I don't remember to ask the ones from District 3 until it is too late. I don't understand exactly how I forgot about them, either.

* * *

**Thanks so much for reading! If you could shoot me a review, that would be utterly brilliant of you. :) Cheers!**


	10. Surprise

10. Surprise

"What are you going to show them?" I ask once Nudge has gotten up to show off to the Gamemakers. She had tried to make conversation with Iggy, and despite it sounding well, I didn't think it was going quite the way she wanted to, for when the girl left she had this sad sort of look on her face.

My District partner shrugs and slumps in his seat. "I've, uh, got a few tricks up my sleeve." He turns to face me, the seed of a grin beginning to grow on his lips. "What about you? What are you gonna show them?"

"Definitely not what I did last year." I huff, and fall back so that I am laying face-up on the bench. I stretch my hands out behind me.

"Oh?" I could feel Iggy break out smiling by the way the atmosphere changes. "And what, might I ask, did you do?"

I fake clearing my throat and say in my best Effie Trinket impression, "You shot an arrow at the Gamemakers' head?!"

We collapse into laughter. The halls echo with Iggy's shrills, as mine die off at the start of an ache in my stomach; I don't remember the last time I have laughed that long, though it couldn't have been more than a few precious seconds. It must have been some time ago, for my body is unaccustomed to this action and tires of it easily. The laughter slowly dies down when I realize that we are not alone.

The one sent to fetch Iggy is frowning at us, as if we are two children laughing in the face of death. But of course, we are. He clears his throat. "The Gamemakers are ready for you, James Griffiths."

Iggy stands, but hesitates. I lean over to grab his hand and squeeze it softly. "You'll be fine."

He half-turns towards my voice. "I sure hope so," he says grimly, and walks off towards the man. The door swings shut and I am alone. I strain to hear something from the other side from my bench, wanting to know if Iggy was doing alright. I start to get up to press my ear to the wall to the gymnasium when I stop. Iggy is blind. Anything he does in there would be considered a miracle.

Satisfied with this, I sit back and wait for the man to collect me.

When he does, it is 20 minutes since Iggy disappeared into the room. The man doesn't say anything; we nod at each other and I rise to meet the Gamemakers. I stop just before the door to flush out the nervousness but to my surprise, there is none. Where there should've been fear or even guilt from my last meeting with the Gamemakers, I have already replaced with determination and bravery. Just like Iggy. I hold my head high and walk through the threshold.

The Gamemakers are paying close attention to me as I strut to the center of the room and the door closes behind me. Maybe they don't want a repeat of last year. Or maybe it's something else. I open my mouth to speak.

Before I can say anything, however, one of the elder, obviously drunken, Gamemakers asks, "Going to show us your wings before you begin, Miss Everdeen?" The others laugh, as if this is some sort of inside joke.

I feel the prickles of confusion run across my skin. Wings? "No sir," I say loudly. The laughter quiets as Plutarch looks at them sternly. He turns back to me and the pocket watch in his hand glistens in the light. He gestures for me to begin. I steel myself with a deep breath, and do what I do best.

I refuse.

…

"Can you pass the potatoes?" Effie asks me. As I hand the bowl over, she asks another question. "So what did you do for the Gamemakers?"

I hand her the bowl and respond with a thin smile. "Nothing."

Once again, all the clatter at the table, save Iggy's incessant eating, ceases, and all usable eyes found me. "Nothing, sweetheart?" Haymitch asks cautiously.

I flash him the same smile. "That's right. Nothing."

After a moment or two, the table begins to awkward bustle around again. I cut off a chunk of the unknown meat in front of me and eat it, not bothered one bit by my performance, or lack thereof.

It takes Effie a bit longer to process this information. After we have all continued on with our meal, she brightens and strains the chirp, "Well. It'll be a low blow from last year's score of eleven, now won't it, Katniss?"

I fake another smile and say, "I guess we will just have to see, won't we, Effie?"

After dinner the scores are announced. The girl from District 1 gets the low score of 3; the woman from District 2 acquires a 2; Angel gets a 4; Gazzy receives a 9; Fang and Johanna an 8 apiece; Nudge a 10. Iggy is greeted by the flashing score of 11. Everyone claps for him, but the noise seems hollow. I pat him on the shoulder, as if to say _good job_. Finally, my score appears.

"And Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, with the score of 12."

I sit there in astonishment while everyone else in the room gapes at me in shock—well, almost everyone. I feel Iggy grow rigid next to me.

The anthem starts to play and the screen goes black.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, guys! But don't worry—the Interviews are next, and one of our characters accidentally reveals something she's not supposed to (SPOILER ALERT)**


	11. Forget

11. Forget

The interviews are in thirty minutes. I am standing off to the side; my makeup and dress feels heavy against my skin. Iggy is clothed in a navy dress shirt and black slacks. Not much was added to him, but the color of his shirt seems to heighten his fiery hair. He scratches his chest uncivilly and grumbles, "Midnight blue."

"You look nice, too," I respond sarcastically, and pull at the dress. In fact, I do not care for the wedding dress. It is beautiful—it is made by Cinna, after all—but I feel it doesn't fit where I am going. I am wearing white at a funeral.

Gazzy smoothly steps over to us as we wait for the rest of the tributes to arrive. His blond hair is spiked up and he wears in a shirt that matches his eyes and dark grey pants. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up just above his elbow, and his small hands are in his pockets. He looks at me and grins. "Nice dress, Kat—"

"Shut up." I say and shove Gazzy away. But despite this I am still biting back a smile.

The girl from District 11, Nudge, steps forward. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail of defined curls that bounce when she walks. She is wearing a sleeveless dress of vibrant green leaves that cut off around her ankles. The neckline is square and as she spins in a circle in her golden heels I notice that only the spine is left bare and its surroundings drips all the way down to her mid-back, slowly filling the empty space with leaves. I think I see two bulges under the back, but she turns her back away from me and I promise myself that it is just my eyes playing tricks again, like they did with Iggy's. "Wow, Nudge!" Gazzy exclaims, rubbing his shoulder. "You look great!"

Her mocha-colored skin flushes. "Thanks, Gasman. You look pretty dapper yourself." She jostles him playfully and looks over at Iggy. I notice that the blush upon her face darkens. "Hey, Iggy." She sounds breathless. Iggy pinpoints where her voice is coming from and smiles.

"Hey Nudge." He says nothing about her dress. Iggy cannot see it, after all, but even so Nudge's face falters when no compliment comes. She turns in her heels and stalks off.

"What's up with her?" Gazzy watches her go.

I shrug, but I know what is going on. I also know that Iggy didn't see what it was (no pun intended).

Ella walks up wearing a strapless bubble gum pink dress. The top is a corset and the bottom is a cascading waterfall of rose petal silk. Her hair has what looks like almost natural blonde highlights and is straight and glossy. She smiles slightly at the sight of Iggy and pulls some hair out of her face like it is a curtain. There is a glinting azure stone on her finger. She stumbles forward on her blue-tinted glass platforms and blushes. "Hi Iggy."

Instantly my District partner's face fills with color. "H-Hey, Ella." He responds nervously. He wipes his palms on the front of his slacks.

She toys with a flirtatious smile, evidently forgetting that he was blind. "You look nice."

"You too." He stutters quickly before realizing what had come out of his mouth. "I mean, I can't really see but…" he clears his throat hurriedly before coming back to Ella. "What I mean to say is that you must look very beautiful tonight, Ella."

What a charmer.

But it works, because the red on her face brightens. She steps forward but trips on her pretty pink dress and begins to fall forward. "Whoa!" She is about to smash her makeup all over the floor when Iggy catches her in midair. Straightening, he helps Ella get back on her feet. She looks over at him. "Thank you." They are still holding hands when I see Iggy place a careful hand on her back and whisper, "Bubble gum pink."

"What's that?" Ella asks innocently.

"I said…let's go get a drink! I could use some water." Iggy takes this opportunity to lead District 1 towards the drink table.

We watch him go. As they do, I see them bump into Fang, who was heading our way, his face down and wearing the ever-present nonchalant look.

As he swaggers over I mutter under my breath, "I feel so old-fashioned next to these girls."

"Don't flatter yourself," Fang grumbles, and leans into the wall next to me. He is wearing unorthodox black jeans, a deep maroon-purple dress shirt and a black bomber jacket. He pulls a hand through his hair, which has now miraculously been cut short, but it flops back over his eyes. "How the hell am I supposed to fight with _this_?"

"You could always chop it off," I suggest sarcastically. After a moment I add, "But it does look good."

Fang darts his eyes over to me and smiles as if we share a secret. Then he checks out the rest of me and scoffs. "Nice dress."

"Screw you." I grind out. Fang, smirking, puts his hands up, and saunters away.

Gazzy grins, and returns his gaze to me. "I think you look good in a wedding dress."

With a roll of my eyes, I am about to hand him a retort that would scar him for life had it not been for the girl in white tutu coasting towards us on her toes. "A wedding? Oh! Can I be the flower girl?" She looks up at me.

Angel is wearing a tutu made of downy white feathers, and the leotard underneath shimmers with what looks like silvery fish scale. _District 4_, I remind myself. She clumsily tucks the blonde hair behind her ear and smiles. "It's not just about District 4, Katniss. There is a lot more to some things than meets the eye." She pauses before continuing, "Like I could make a great flower girl and you just don't know it."

I roll my eyes and laugh. "But I'm not getting married, Angel."

"Oh come on, Max! Just this once!" The pleading is out of her mouth before Angel knows what's going on.

Everything becomes silent. Gazzy stares at the girl in shock. I study her face and find nothing but horror of the words she has said. "Who's Max?" he asks.

"No one." She says too quickly.

"Angel…" my voice is dangerously low. She sneaks a glance at me, and it is laced with fear.

"No one!" she repeats, her voice shrill.

"Angel—" Gazzy takes a step towards District 4.

"I told you, it's no one!" She shouts. Now the entire room is silent. I see Iggy and Ella turn towards us in the corner of my eye. Even Fang has turned and is studying his polar opposite with concern. I look around to give people apologetic looks, and turn back to the two kids. Angel is staring furiously into Gazzy's eyes. She mouths something I do not understand nor hear.

"You never said 'Max,'" Gazzy drones. His blue eyes are distant. "There is no 'Max.'" Angel nods and floats away. Slowly the boy regains consciousness as he stands there, swaying.

I peer into his eyes. "You okay?"

Gazzy, for a moment, does nothing. And then he looks at me and smiles. "Never better."

…

"Hurry up, lover boy!" Gale yells over his shoulder as he practically skips into District 11.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Peeta huffs back angrily. He is trying to sprint with all of their camping gear strapped to his back.

Gale starts running backwards. There is a sort of maniacal grin on his face. "Come on, Peeta! I thought you were a victor."

"And I thought you were smart." Peeta shoots back.

"Just one stop," the hunter assures him.

"We're gonna get caught," Peeta sings in a taunting manner.

"Oh please. Don't you want to see Katniss dear in her wedding dress?" Gale says just as snidely. They reach the crowd of people in the square of District 11. The large screen show an enlarged version of Caesar Flickerman, decked out in lavender this year. He was welcoming District 1 to the stage; it was a girl in a glittery pink dress.

They stay to watch all of the Districts until Katniss arrives in her wedding dress. As she twirls, the fabric is eaten up by flames. When the blaze fades it leaves in its wake beautiful feathers of blue and white and there must be more, but Peeta can't make them out from the back of the crowd. He is so glad to see her. When she looks out at the crowd, it is almost as if she can sense Peeta watching, and she looks straight at him.

Gale watches Peeta watch her, and can't help but grimace. He is losing Catnip, and he didn't even have her anymore.


	12. Fight

12. Fight

My door is swung open and someone drags me out from under the covers. I am instantly awake and alert. Cinna looks down at me, a dismal smile on his face. "Come on, Katniss. We have to go."

I follow him quickly down the hall. There are red lights and the sound of blaring horns lighting up the dark. "What's going on?" I shout over everything.

Cinna doesn't respond. Portia and Iggy stand when we enter the living room. Without speaking, Cinna points towards the wall beside me. Portia nods. He turns but I am in the way. _Sorry_, he mouths, puts one hand on either shoulder and pushes me aside. Quickly, he pads in a number on the wall and for a moment nothing happens. I hear Cinna curse loudly. He is about to reenter the code when the wall opens up, much like an elevator. He pushes me inside. Portia does the same with Iggy.

"Whoa!" he grunts as his body slams into mine. My District partner was half asleep and must weigh half a ton. We fall to the floor. Cinna steps in and presses one of the buttons on the bottom.

"Where are we going?" I shout over the ruckus behind him.

My designer's face melts when he meets my eyes. "You cannot stay much longer, Katniss. You and Iggy must get yourselves ready."

"But aren't you coming with us—"

"Katniss!" Cinna yells, and every sound I think of making to get his attention vanishes from my mind. "Katniss listen to me, please." His voice is breaking. He turns and catches Portia's eye. She is glancing around, as if searching for someone. Fear is everywhere I look. My friend turns back to me. "Listen. You must prepare yourselves for the Games, both of you." Cinna hazards a look at Iggy. He turns back to me. "We don't have much time—"

The other elevator behind Cinna bursts open. As he turns, I take this chance to stand back up and try and pull him in, but my designer resists. The doors try to close on him, and Cinna holds them off while looking at me, and only me. The fear is permeating from him, and I can feel it entering my system as if it is an airborne drug. There are Peacekeepers filing into the room. I cannot see Effie or Haymitch.

All I see are tears in his eyes when my friend turns back to me and whispers, "I'm still betting on you, Katniss."

"Cinna, no!" I roar, and at the same moment a Peacekeeper shouts his name and Cinna snaps the elevator shut and the agonizing sounds and colors stop and I fall back next to Iggy. The silence is deafening.

"What are they going to do to them?" Iggy's voice pounds in my ears, for once, he is subdued by the fear and I can hear him try to strangle it out of his voice. I look over to see Iggy's eyes swimming. He straightens his legs out before us.

I pull my knees to my chest and lean my head on his shoulder. There is no emotion left in me, and I am left in a numbing, empty shell of myself. "I don't know."

…

I take Iggy to his Launch Room after they inject the trackers, help him don the ugly-colored garments and are thankful Iggy cannot see the bright blue hue they have picked. As I help I help him I pretend not to notice the large, roughly-cut slits on his shirt and blue bodysuit. He wanders around the room for a little bit, asking where everything is and what he has to do when it is time. My answers are short, the words themselves struggling to get out of my throat constricted with unaccustomed nervousness. Right before I leave, Iggy calls my name. I spin to face him, the door half-open. "Yes?"

"Good luck," he says, and opens his arms for a hug.

Without thinking I fall into his lengthy arms and grip him tightly in the embrace. For a minute we stand there, holding on just in case we never come back. Finally I withdraw and go to find my own Launch Room.

I get dressed. Everything is so cold without someone else there to share the burden of pain. As I pull on the jumpsuit I can't help but feel something heavy cling to the neckline. I look down to find my pin. My mockingjay. _The third had wings of deepest blue, most beauteous to behold…_

The words make me shudder. I pull on my belt and the shoes and collapse onto the couch. There is a TV in my room, unlike Iggy's. I turn it on and Claudius Templesmith's face appears on the screen.

"—Yes, the tribute's tower has had quite a day, Caesar," he was saying. The camera cut to Caesar, a look of surprise etched on his lavender face.

"Really? What's happened? I guess I was so looking forward to the Games today I didn't hear the brouhaha."

"Mm, yes. It seems that the District 2 tribute, Valencia Martinez, was found dead this morning in her room."

"No." Caesar gasps. "How did this happen?"

"They're not saying much, but—"

I flick the mute button and continue to watch the screen without its accompaniment. In the corner was the countdown. _Five minutes!_ It flashes. A picture of Valencia Martinez appears. She is a very pretty woman in her mid-40s, with honeyed skin and a bright smile. Her hair's the color of chestnuts, but there were stripes of blonde here and there. It reminded me of Ella.

That is when I come to a realization. Valencia Martinez reminds me of an older Ella. _Valencia must be Ella's mother._ But that's not possible. It…can't be possible. I find myself swaying where I stand, but I don't remember getting up. What is going on? First wings, now this?

The Games haven't even begun and we were already a tribute down. We were going in with 23 tributes.

Suddenly a voice startles me into remembering where I am. It instructs me to get onto the platform in the corner of the room. I wish I had a forehead to lean mine against; preferably Cinna's. He would have been able to calm my suddenly frazzled nerves.

But I don't have him anymore. I don't even know if he is alive anymore. All I know is that I have to fight.

And fight I will.

I step onto the platform, and breathe in deeply.

_Let the Games begin._

…

She is in a wheelchair, the same as Ari locked her in all those years before. She hasn't forgotten; unlike the rest of the flock, Max hasn't forgotten a thing. And that was why they had kept her. That and she was their leader.

"You know you six were a mistake, right?" Jeb murmurs.

"Yeah. One that you all _so willingly_ wanted to create." Max turns away, and pouts angrily at the ground. "Just another batch of mutts."

"Yes, but you Maximum Ride, you were the most lethal of them all. The most powerful." Jeb turns a corner.

Max grimaces at her full name. The one she had given herself all those centuries ago; the one she had remembered when she and the others had escaped the Capitol and headed straight for District 13. They had almost made it, too; an ally had contacted President Coin and convinced her to take in the rebel mutts. Coin was expecting the kids to appear out of the sky, until… Max shivers. She didn't like to remember that day, but she had the battle scars to prove it happened. The whole thing had been kept hush-hush. The flock had been separated, and slowly taken away to God knows where, brainwashed of the events that had occurred. The cure to the "rebel mutts" had worked on almost everyone, too…everyone but Max.

And it was all because of the man pushing her wheelchair.

"What's happened?" Max asks casually, a strain in her voice.

"To who?"

"You know who, _Jeb_."

Jeb exhales deeply. There was a long string of silence before he finally says, "The Hunger Games."

"What?" If Max could've turned in her seat, she would've. Instead she lets her mouth fall open. "What do you mean, the—oh." Her eyes watered slightly. "They—" she stops again, and scoffs. "Wrong place to put my warriors," she says under her breath.

"Hmm?" Jeb asks.

"Nothing," she grumbles, and sits back in her chair. After a moment, "Where are you taking me?"

They turn another corner again, and into the first door on the right. Max remembers this, in case she can get the shackles off her wrists. Then she could up-and-away, save her flock, kick some Capitol butt, and get out before nightfall.

The scientist stalls his answer until he finally says, "To watch."

* * *

**So there's that little nugget about the Flock escaping the Capitol. And then Dr. Martinez was found dead, but was it suicide? Or murder?**

**...I feel like a commercial for a CSI: Nowhere episode...**


	13. Or Flight?

13. Or Flight?

As I rise to the top of my short journey into the arena, the first thing that reaches me is the sound of blood throbbing in my ears, and then the rush of water and soft mockingjay calls in the distance. I shield my eyes from the sun reflecting off the ground. Taking in my surroundings, I realize that the sunlight is surrounding me, lapping at my feet. The countdown begins, making me curse myself for not figuring it out earlier.

We are surrounded completely by water.

My eyes adjust to the light enough for me to see the Cornucopia sitting on sweet, dry land. I have 40—no, 39 seconds to find my bearings. I look around at the other tributes. There is Angel on my right, beaming at me in the light as if we are on an once-in-a-lifetime vacation. I guess it makes sense; she is from District 4. The water surrounding us—it's in her blood. I look to the left to find a gaping hole.

There is just an empty circle where a tribute is supposed to stand, with the saltwater lapping up against the sides. I squint up at the sky. The Gamemakers decided to place me next to Valencia Martinez. Suicidal District 2.

_16 seconds._

What message are they trying to send to me by placing me next to Valencia? Setting the question aside for a later time, I look for Iggy but cannot find him. Someone starts shouting over the sound of the waves, but it is inaudible and cannot form true words in my ears.

_10 seconds._

Out of the corner of my eye I see Angel ready herself, as if she is about to take off. There is a flutter of pure white protruding her jumpsuit, but I blink and it is gone. _Focus, Katniss!_ I chide myself, and prepare to launch into the water. My mind drifts back to this morning's attack at the Tower.

_4 seconds._

Focus, damn it! I lean down as far as I can; the unmistakable red blips of bombs just below the surface of the water blink up at me.

_2 seconds._

I let out a long breath.

_One._

The gong sounds in my ears, and I am about to dive in when the flapping of wings reaches my ears.

Wings?

Everything inside me that is affiliated with survival shouts for me to dive into the water and get to the Cornucopia. I can almost hear Haymitch yelling in my ear, demanding why I haven't moved. Instead of listening to my imaginary mentor, I look up to find five silhouettes shoot up into the sky and unfurl their wings.

The elder Gamemaker's words come back to me. _'Going to show us your wings before you begin, Miss Everdeen?'_ Only now do I find the meaning to his words, and they send a ripple of shock deep into my soul.

"HURRY IT UP, KATNISS!" a voice yells at me, snapping me back to the arena. I am in the arena. I am in the Hunger Games. I cannot be pondering over a stupid revelation. Damn it!

I take an arced dive at the water, ready to swim my way to the island; I have lost precious seconds stuck on my podium. Now it is time to fight.

The tips of my fingers just penetrate the water when I feel two strong hands grip onto my torso and yank me upwards. I gasp, for I have not prepared for this sudden feeling of…flying. I glance up to see a dark figure frown into the wind, his hair whipping over his eyes.

"Stupid hair," Fang mutters. He looks down at me, and then past me, and says quickly, "Prepare for landing," before dropping me on my stomach into the Cornucopia sand. "Don't forget to save me a dagger!" He yells at me before banking and soaring higher into the heat.

Finnick is there to scoop me to my feet. He is grinning. "'Bout time you got here, Everdeen!" He shoves a bow and quiver into my chest. As soon as I grip onto them, I am calm. I am finally ready to fight. And all I can see are my targets slinking towards me in the tropical heat. "Watch my back," Finnick murmurs into me before winding up and throwing his trident at Gloss. Ella's district partner dives behind the Cornucopia, and the trident hits the metal sculpture with a loud _twang_.

I sling the arrows over one shoulder and press my back into Finnick's. I don't want to trust him, I don't know what's going on; I know that I must protect my allies, no matter how annoying and how many of them there are. I pull an arrow back and release. It hits Woof in the jugular, spurting glittering crimson onto the sand. He goes down, but there are more behind him. I am running forward, pluck the weapon from Woof's neck and pull back again before releasing. This time, the arrow pierces Gazzy's District partner in the heart. She falls, face-first, into the sand. It wets beneath her, adding to the bloodbath. In the back of my mind I hear the cannon start to sing. There is energy pulsing through my veins, only accompanied by the thrill of fear. I am about to leave her body where it twitches when I remember Fang's request, and pilfer the dagger tucked into her belt.

"Sorry," I grunt. "But I know someone who might find this useful." I hope that the Capitol sees this, how ruthless the Games have made me. I hope that they catch the shaking in my hand as I grip onto the dagger tightly and shout to my other land-dwelling ally, "Finnick! Let's go!"

I get no answer.

"Finnick?" I cry, and take off to the blind side of the Cornucopia. I am met with the sound of two more cannons. Finnick is pressing his foot firmly into the back of one body—the face moves to reveal District 10—and extracting his trident from the carcass. Sensing my presence, Finnick Odair swivels to face me in the sand, trident just inches from my face. Instinct takes over and I go for an arrow.

Realization sets in between me and District 4 when there is a cry for help out in the water. We both turn to face the sound to find Beetee and Wiress, a podium away from each other, shouting for help. "They can't swim," I say under my breath.

In an instant, Finnick is pressing his trident into my face. "I'll get them," he states with dignity, and starts off for the water.

"Don't bother!" Two voices calls from above. We peer up to see Gazzy and Nudge grinning down at us, looking happier than I've ever seen them. The sight strikes me as odd.

"We've got them!" Nudge shouts, and takes off for Wiress. Gazzy follows suit, but not before adding, "Get out of here! We'll catch up soon!"

Nodding towards them, Finnick snatches back his trident and we take off down the sand strip, towards the two unmistakably-large birds flying in circles over the northeast part of the island.


	14. Argue

**A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in a while, but it's here now! Enjoy the next part of the Games :)**

* * *

14. Argue

As the television set cuts from face to face, Max can't help but smile. Her babies look so determined, so bloodthirsty up on that screen. The camera shows Nudge punch the lights out of some old dude, and Max cheers under her breath as he collapses in a fit of blood and broken bones. "That's my girl."

Jeb, standing behind her, stops writing something on his clipboard to say, "What?"

"Nothing," Max draws out, and looks down at her fingernails, acting bored. "I'm just saying the Hunger Games was a bad choice on your part. It was your decision, Jeb, right?" she glances behind her in an oh-so-innocent manner.

The scientist grinds his teeth before smiling in the same sarcastic way. "It was."

"Funny," Max laughs before turning back to the bloodbath on the screen. "Isn't that why you made us in the first place?

"To kill?"

…

Thick, steaming trees spring up from the mossy ground as Finnick and I weave through our surroundings. There is a rustling in the leaves overhead, and the already-loaded bowstring tenses at my fingertips. I glance up to see nothing but a dark canopy, the little pricks of sunlight looking down on me. Finnick takes the lead, and we continue to tread lightly through the jungle. After a minute or two, Finnick stops to presses a paused arm into my chest, making me stifle an alarmed cry. He points the tips of his trident at the scattered tree trunks before us. "Look," he whispers.

I glance swiftly. "I don't think the trees are out to get us," I whisper back.

He throws me an annoyed, mocking look before gesturing upwards with his chin. I tilt my head to peer at the fake sky emitting a blisteringly wet heat through the canopy. The heavy bead of boiling hot sweat that trickles down my face brings me to a realization. Where have our birds gone? We exchange a glance, Finnick's green glass eyes and I, and hazard a quick sweep of the area. I squat down to inspect for any fresh tracks when there is an eruption of snickering and urgent shushing above me.

The laughter is easily recognizable. I lie back onto the moss and aim my tense bow at the two winged boys crouching on a branch, their outlines just visible in the shadows of the tree. Making eye contact with the darker one, I lick my lips and call out, "Having fun?"

"Loads." The sarcastic answer bounces back, but I don't see its owner grinning. "I always love being put into an arena full of humidity and people who want to kill me first thing in the morning."

Fang's companion jabs in him the ribs and shouts down, "Katniss? Is that you?" He hoists himself off the branch, snaps out his wings and glides down next me. There is already sweat sitting on the border between his strawberry blond hair and pale skin, and a few cuts dancing along his neckline and ribcage. The fabric along the lower injuries flutters as he straightens, but I don't see any blood.

"Unfortunately," I answer. My eyes fall over Iggy's beautifully-colored wings; I try to gulp down my surprise. They are colored grey with white patches along the bottom and tips. In the green surrounding us, the wings reflected the color of the moss and the trees.

"Who's there?" Iggy demands out of nowhere, tearing my eyes away from studying his wingspan to watching his tense face. His ears are perked up, and I follow his general line of sight to see Finnick looking at us with a hard face.

He leans over his trident. "Don't we need to keep moving? I want to survey the area," he pauses for a moment to study Iggy's folded wings before continuing. "So we know what _else_ we're up against." By the way he says it, I sense that Finnick knows something that we don't.

I take my time before responding to District 4. I analyze his shifting sea-colored eyes and stern expression and when did he manage to take the whole top half of his jumpsuit off to expose his muscles? "Good plan." I finally resolve, and haul myself to my feet. Iggy stands next to me. I realize that he is close to snarling at Finnick. It explains why the bronze-haired man was on his guard, staring at the blind boy with such contempt.

"Have the rest shown up yet?" Iggy asks.

I shrug before remembering that my district partner can't see. "So far it's just you, me, Finnick and Fang. I saw Gazzy and Nudge pick up Beetee and Wiress, but I lost sight of them as soon as we hit the jungle."

"I lost sight as soon as forever." Iggy cuts in, joking.

Finnick and I both shoot him a searing glance and, although he is blind, Iggy lets his head drop. His discomforting position reminds me of an animal guilty of stealing my lunch as I aim an arrow at its heart. "Sorry." He ruffles his feathers awkwardly. "Bad timing."

Despite the guilty animal apologizing, I always end up shooting it. Before I open my mouth, however, Finnick gets to the kill first. "I'll say," he mutters, and I barely hear him over the noise of the jungle.

In an instant Finnick is shoved with his back against the nearest tree, one of Iggy's arms holding him there and the other cocked back, daring to swing forward and collide with District 4's face of perfection. "Say that again!" Iggy shouts in his face. The air hums with tension as Finnick licks his pink lips. He doesn't waver. Sweat slithers down my tense spine, but slows to a stop when I see Finnick slowly raising a hand towards me. Without looking over, District 4's golden boy murmurs smoothly, "At ease, Everdeen. I can deal with your _friend_ here."

His comment leaves me in confusion. I look down at my stance and realize what exactly Finnick means.

Without my acknowledgment, the bowstring is pulled back to my cheek. The stone tip points toward the two standing against the tree. I was about to…the sweat continues down my back swirling in uneven lines until it begins to pool up around the cinched waist, where the cooling agent dissipates into the fabric and evaporates back into the air. The heat pulses in waves around me, making something at my side and my head throb with thick pain. I lower the bow. The grass; it's too green, too perfect. It's not real grass.

There is more commotion in the background, but I am too lost to fight my way out of my own head and end the skirmishing between the others. Everything around me; it's too sharp, too clear. The air is thick and dry, all at the same time.

More sweat trickles down my back.

My tongue is dry against the roof of my mouth. I dislodge the arrow and place it back in its quiver with the rest of its brothers. _Eleven arrows…I have eleven arrows…_

In the background, the shouting continues. The tension in the air buzzes in my ears.

I lick my lips.

I aimed an arrow at a heart, and more importantly, a guilty animal's heart. I almost killed Iggy; almost killed James Griffiths. I was almost one step closer to getting out of here alive.

My tongue passes over my salty lips again, but everything's run dry. How is it possible that the heat and the dehydration are getting to me so fast?

Iggy's fist connects with Finnick's jaw, and I hear the rattling in my brain.

Why did I try to kill Iggy?

Fang jumps from the tree, his black-as-night wings kicking up any loose dirt on the ground. His muffled shouts demand why the two are attacking each other. There is a new cut on Iggy's cheek. Finnick's holding his jaw.

The oldest man spits blood, and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. There is a terrible, blood-lusting look in his eyes. "This is the Hunger Games." He proclaims, almost too proudly.

"Oh yeah?" Iggy spits back. "Then kill me." Despite Fang's hands pulling him back, Iggy steps forward, and glances up into Finnick's general direction. The menacing glare makes the atmosphere crackle and expel flames. "I dare you."

With one swift movement, Iggy is free from Fang's grasp, and my district partner is getting close and personal with the moss that was at his feet not moments ago, the tip of a trident pressing down into his throat. Finnick Odair looks at me, ready to kill. And then, just like that, I look into the green glass of his eyes and he doesn't. Instead, District 4 relinquishes his weapon, and slings it over his shoulders. One look, I know what he's doing.

"You said you'd be an ally." I say before he can.

Finnick grimaces, but doesn't falter. He picks up his other spears, and his net, and responds, "You coming, Everdeen?"

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. The word _yes_ forms at the back of my throat, but I can't say it. Something holds my tongue.

"Well." Finnick lets a wave of hurt cross his eyes, and then he pushes it away. "So much for that. Good luck, Katniss Everdeen." He salutes, and something on his wrist winks at me. Before I can comprehend what it is he turns and sprints off into the forest. Soon he blends in with the jungle and is gone.

"_And may the odds be ever in your favor_," I mouth after him. Now I know what will happen the next time I see Finnick Odair. He will kill us, or one of us will kill him. I turn and glower at Iggy. I feel as if a fire is engulfing my entire body. "You just had to drive him away, didn't you?" my voice is low, as ominous as I can make it.

My district partner gaps at me. "Couldn't you feel it?" he demands.

"Feel what?" the derision drips from my mouth.

"There was something off about him!" Fang jumps to his defense. "He's hiding something, something big. It was in his voice. How could you not tell?" The boy with dark wings was close to bellowing at me, as if he could not believe that I couldn't grasp what he was saying.

"Maybe it's because I'm not genetically-altered!" I shoot back.

Fang runs a hand through his ragged hair and exhales loudly.

"And, in case you didn't realize, Finnick is popular." I continue. "Until we find something edible in this jungle, until we find _water_ for God's sake, we need sponsors to keep us alive. And both of you just pushed him away!" I thrust my hand out to where we last saw Finnick. "Do you even think about that?"

Iggy turns his head towards Fang. Fang looks over at his winged companion.

"What?" I stare them down. When they don't respond, I elaborate, "What am I missing?"

Fang's lips move, but no sound comes out. I raise an eyebrow at him. He coughs awkwardly, and says again, "There's water all around us. Fresh water, even. It's in the trees."


	15. Catch

15. Catch

It is still the first night of the Quarter Quell when Peeta and Gale reach District 8. "We should've never taken that shortcut," Peeta grunts in annoyance when they reach the square. He tosses the heavy pack onto the cobbles, and the contents inside jump as it smacks against the stones. The gleeful feeling that usually brushes off the Games and into the Districts has faded too quickly, and died. There is no one but the District 12 boys standing in the Square. In the background, the large screen in front of City Hall flashes the highlights of the day's bloodbath.

Gale crosses his arms. "Can you believe it?" He scoffs.

The boy with the bread lazily kicks the pack towards his partner-in-crime, wishing not for the first time that it was him on the screen and not Katniss. "Believe what?" He mutters tiredly.

Gale doesn't seem to notice Peeta's lack of enthusiasm. "A bunch of the tributes up there have wings grafted to their backs."

Having bent down to grope for some water in his pack, Peeta snaps his head up in alarm. "What?" Not waiting for an answer, he tunes back in to the screen. He sees Finnick Odair running in the dark from Katniss, her district partner, and some other boy with black hair.

"Five of the tributes from five different Districts revealed today that they have _wings_." Claudius Templesmith's voice echoes through the empty square. "What do you think of this, Caesar? It seems as if President Snow has allowed _mutts_ to participate in the Games."

Caesar laughs. "I don't know, Claudius, but it'll sure make things interesting, won't it? Let's look at the rest of the highlights." The screen changes, and darts from face to face. Peeta recognizes the on-edge look on the tributes' faces; he had been in that position once. Up on screen, the Games are about to begin. "Now watch this." Caesar's voice narrates, "as soon as the gong goes off, the winged tributes shoot straight up into the air, like so." Peeta watches in amazement as a Rue-ish looking girl shoots up into the air and unfurls her tawny wings.

Gale makes an uninterested noise behind him, but the blonde is too absorbed to care.

"As usual, the bloodbath is a thing of beauty; Finnick Odair, the man of almost every woman's dreams, hurls his spear at two more hearts before Katniss shows up. It seems as if Katniss Everdeen," they pull up a video of the girl on fire almost diving into the pristine waters, and Peeta's breath catches in his throat. "Well, she's rallied herself up a handful of allies, including Finnick Odair, and all of the winged ones. Who knows who else she's going to have to tie herself to in order to stay alive!"

Claudius murmurs in agreement, but the sound is cut off by Gale clamping a hand over Peeta's mouth. "Mmph!" the baker yells out in surprise, and yanks the hand away with tremendous force. His brow furrows as he turns to face his companion. "What the hell was—"

The words run dry in his mouth when he realizes that it wasn't Gale who had put a hand over his mouth. He and Gale are completely surrounded by Peacekeepers. Their leader raises his gun to point at Peeta and says gruffly, "What's a District 12 like you doing _here_?"

Peeta hears the weapon click not five inches from his face.

The stillness in the air presses down on him, and he feels as if he in unable to breathe. Peeta continues to glare at the man before him, and tries to think of a plan to get out of the mess he's in. He should have never listened to Gale…

"Since when do Peacekeepers wield guns?" Gale asks loudly.

Peeta breaks his weary eyes from the man threatening his life to look at his companion over his shoulder. Gale presses his whip-lashed back against Peeta's. "What are you doing?" he hisses. "You're going to get us killed."

"Calm down, lover boy," Gale says knowingly. "I've got this." He steps forward, towards the other men in the circle and asks, "Do you believe in the stories of the Dark Days?"

Peeta feels his possibility of getting out of District 8 alive dwindling as the cocked guns begin to close in. "This is no time for a history lesson!" Peeta hisses. "If we ever get out of this, I'm going to kill you."

"Please. You could barely kill that girl when the Careers told you to." Gale shoots back just as sardonically. The eldest Hawthorne turns his back to Peeta. He licks his lips, and in a low voice repeats, "Do you believe in the stories of the Dark Days?"

The air is silent again. As time wears on, something begins to crumble in Gale's eyes, as if he has given something away to the wrong people. Just when Gale was about ready to admit defeat, the man with his gun pointed at Peeta opens his mouth and replies, "How do we know they are just stories?"

Peeta watches with slack-jawed amazement as the men drone off one by one, as if speaking through code. His traveling companion spreads a relieved grin over his face as the Peacekeepers continue to chant.

"How do we know they are just stories?"

"Because the Capitol tells us so."

"And whatever the Capitol says must be true."

"And there is no District 13. Not anymore."

"The uprising is the reason why the Hunger Games were created."

"To ensure that what happened during that time will not happen again."

"For as long as the President is alive."

In unison, every man holds a fist in the air and chants, "Long live the President."

The guns lower, and are slipped into their holsters. "Follow us, Hawthorne," one of the Peacekeepers says in a lower, friendlier voice, and begins to walk away, the rest of the men following in twos.

Peeta gapes after them as Gale pulls both packs onto his back and begins to follow the troop. "What was that?" the boy with the bread feels as if his tongue is made of sand.

The hunter doesn't answer at first; he just pulls his associate along. Finally, when they reach their destination, Gale looks into Peeta's blue eyes and answers him. "People we can trust."

…

"So these people are part of the rebellion?" Peeta is still looking for clarification.

"Keep your voice down!" Lionel barks. They are sitting around large wood table in a dimly-lit cottage in the dusty suburbs of District 8. The rebel leader glances around to make certain no one had heard Peeta through the cottage's thick walls, and continues to study Gale with narrow eyes. The 'Peacekeepers' watch Peeta and Gale eat with feigned interest, impatiently waiting for the information they were itching to get their hands on. Gale knew what they want, but needs to buy some time.

"When can we attack, Hawthorne?" Lionel demands, not for the first time since reaching the cottage. "The real Peacekeepers are still out there, beating our children for playing in the streets, and whipping our wives for putting food on the table. We need to act _now_!" He bangs his fist on the table.

Gale is unperturbed by Lionel's fit of rage, and takes a long sip of his drink. "The President says to wait until the time is right."

"Oh, and when will that be?" Another man chimes in rudely.

"Soon." Gale doesn't look up from his meal. "When the bread is comprehended."

Peeta finds himself snorting, and then all eyes glaring at him. "Sorry," he says lamely, and looks down. "I just…it sounded funny. I mean, since when is bread _comprehended_?"

Gale and Lionel exchange a glance. "You didn't tell him, did you?" Lionel asks.

The younger man scoffs. "He wouldn't be able to understand." And then to Peeta, "Come on, Peeta. You're the baker."

"Wait—what didn't you tell me?" Peeta asks, ignoring the comment about his status as a baker.

"Are you going to tell him why you're really here, or shall I?" Lionel sits back in his chair and narrows his eyes at Hawthorne.

The younger man shrugs. "Better me than you." He finishes off his drink. Glancing over at Peeta, he leans forward in his seat. "So here's the deal."

* * *

**And Gale's plans are to be revealed. The pair from District 12 will have more of an important part of the story, I can promise you that :) So what did you think?**


	16. Reveal

16. Reveal

"You lied to me!" Peeta swung angrily at Gale's face. The hunter ducks, and puts his hands out in a mockingly submissive manner.

"You're acting like a child, Peeta." Gale ducks again. "What was I supposed to tell you? The truth?"

"That might've been a nice start!" Peeta snarls, and looks for something to throw at the hunter in his fit of rage.

"Okay, so, maybe I lied a little." Gale admits and continues to back up, his eyes never leaving his attacker. He spreads his arms out, the smirk gone from his face. "It was part of my mission. So sue me."

Peeta growls and lunges at Gale. This time he tackles the older, leaner boy to the ground and they struggle in the dirt. "You—you wouldn't have come if—if I had told you the truth!" Gale grunts as he and the victor continue to struggle. Peeta lands good two or three punches across Gale's face before the tides turn and Gale knees his assailant between the legs. The baker groans and rolls off into the dust. Gale pins the blonde down; much like Clove did to Katniss last year. He held a carving knife to Peeta's throat, looks down into the baker's blue eyes. "You know I'm right."

Growling, Peeta tries to move his limbs, but Gale just presses the sharp end of the knife deeper into Peeta's throat. He clucks, "You should've seen right through my plan. Going to the Capitol to save Katniss? She would've been long gone by the time we got there. No. Now I've told you the real reason we're in District 8. And right now, all we can do is prep for when the bread is comprehended, and hope that President Coin's plan will work."

"Not that again," Peeta grunts, and continues to try and resist being pinned down.

In one swift move, Gale tucks his knife back into his belt, stands, and holds out a hand to the blonde still on the ground. The hunter sniffs and, with the other hand, pushes the hair out of his waiting eyes. Peeta sits on the ground, wondering whether or not to take Gale Hawthorne's hand or not. If he did, he would officially be considered an enemy of the state. If he didn't, Gale, and the rest of the undercover rebels, would kill him without a second's thought.

Peeta knows that either way, he's dead. He reaches up and takes his companion's hand. Gale smiles and pulls the victor up. "Welcome to the rebellion, Mellark."

…

The eerie feeling of fingers floating over the side of my body jolts me awake and makes me tense up. I grab for my bow in the dark, but as I curl my fingers around the grip another warm hand places itself on mine and stops me.

"It's me," the hand's owner whispers.

"What is it, Iggy?" I don't let go of the bow, but it's as if my district partner can read my mind, and quickly releases his grip on my hand as if I am on fire. I don't want to be touched.

"I can barely stay awake. Your turn to take watch." He yawns to prove his point.

I wave him away with my bow. "Fine. Go get some rest before tomorrow." Iggy nods his thanks at me, jumps off my branch and flaps off to find the one holding Ella. I sit up against the trunk of the tree and take in my surroundings. If I wasn't in the Hunger Games, everything about my surroundings would be considered lovely.

Underneath my thick branch is another that holds District 11—Nudge—and Angel. Across from me is Fang—at least, I think so. I remember his canny ability to blend in with any kind of setting, and think that it must come in handy. There is the short crack of a branch below me, and I reach for an arrow. Looking for the source of the sound, I pinpoint a shifting branch next to Fang's—and watch as Gazzy flips over in his sleep again. Rolling my eyes, I slip the arrow back into my quiver and go back to surveying my allies. Iggy and Ella take up the lowest branch because Ella is the only one who was afraid of heights in our group. My district partner has already slipped into the realm of sleep, his arms held protectively around District 1.

It reminds me of the days when Peeta and I would fall asleep together, to save each other from the nightmares that had come after us after the Games. I shiver although the air is thick and warm, and unconsciously wish that he was here with me.

And like that, I shake the thought away. He could've been in the Games; Peeta could be in my position right now. Instead of me taking the midnight shift in the middle of the Quarter Quell, he could be in my position, missing me and wishing I was there. But I chose to take his spot in the Games. I cannot wish this sort of curse upon my friend, my partner-in-crime, even if I did use him in my deceptions. Something inside me hurts, but I push down the pain. Out of sight, out of mind, Katniss.

I scan the horizon again and go over what's happened so far, to keep my head. Valencia Martinez died right before the Games, and no one knows how or why. Five of my allies, including my district partner, having wings. Finnick abandoned us, with no tangible reason whatsoever. I frown to keep myself from gritting my teeth. Next time I see him, I am going to make sure that my arrows go right through his heart. I swallow, and try to breathe. Keep thinking, Katniss. What else has happened? In the bloodbath a total of seven tributes died. Nudge and Gazzy had gotten Wiress and Beetee to land, but they ran off with a spool of wire and weren't seen again.

"Don't forget that Fang and Iggy found out that there was fresh water in the trees." Stifling a heart attack, I open my eyes to find Angel smiling at me sweetly from the other end of my branch, her, well, _angelic_ white wings spread out before me. "And Haymitch sent us that spile." She gestures towards the metal cylinder attached firmly to my belt.

"Yeah," I say. "And…that."

She pauses before saying, "I bet you're wondering how this all happened." Angel smiles cheerily. She gestures to her wings. "How we came to be."

"Sort of, but it's not really important…"

"Oh, but Katniss." Her voice takes a turn for the dark, and her blue eyes fill with wonder and knowledge and energy, the emotions billowing around in Angel's irises. "That's where you're wrong."

I lean back and scan the horizon and everything below us once more before crossing my arms and returning my gaze to Angel. "Fine. Let's say I am interested. What's the story?"

"We—Iggy, Fang, Nudge, Gazzy and I—we are all mutts."

It's hard not to scoff. "So I gathered."

Angel glares at me, and I shut my mouth. She brightens slightly and continues, "We were revived by the Capitol scientists, led by one man named Jeb Batchelder. We were originally supposed to make our debut as mutts in the 72nd Hunger Games, but things went wrong.

"We began to create mutations on our own, without help from the white coats. Fang began to 'disappear' whenever he was wearing dark clothes and his heartbeat was steady. Nudge is able to hack into any electronic item and attract metal objects. They put her in a room made of wood in order to keep her contained. Gazzy…well, I'm guessing you know all about his _gift_."

As if on cue, we turn our heads towards the sound of another one of Gazzy's toxic clouds being sent out into the atmosphere. I crinkle my nose up in disgust. Turning back to Angel, I ask, "What about Iggy? Was his mutation being blind?"

Angel purses her lips. "No. He was the first to be…worked on. They tried to give him x-ray vision or something. As you can see, it didn't work."

"Oh." I wonder how horrible life must have been, to be abused by the Capitol, and worked on like a science experiment.

"We were technically science experiments, Katniss." Angel smiles, but it fades as Angel looks off into the distance and loses herself in her own thoughts.

"And…what about you?"

This makes Angel's face brighten again. "You don't already know?"

I avert my eyes trying to come up with an answer. From the tone of her voice, I know that her mutation must be the most powerful out of all of them.

"Think back, Katniss. What have you seen me do?"

The interviews appear in my mind. During the days spent training, the young girl with blonde curls seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. That was because… "You can—"

Angel reaches over and puts a small finger across my lips. "Sh, now. No need to say it out loud." She winks at me and withdraws her hand.

_You can read minds._

"And manipulate them, too, if I want to."

After moment, something makes the gears turn in my mind. _You would never let this secret out so that all of Panem can hear it. You've been telling me all of this in my mind, haven't you?_

"Of course."

_So everyone watching this thinks that I've been talking to myself this whole time?_

"Probably. But it doesn't matter. During my audience with the Gamemakers I…convinced Plutarch to deter any attention away from me during the Games."

_You mean you went through his mind._

"Something like that, yes."

I search my mind for an answer, but am unable to come up with one. This angelic child has a demon under her mask. I am suddenly relieved that she is an ally and not an enemy.

The young girl places a warm hand on mine, and looks into my eyes with her wide blue ones. "Me too, Katniss."

If this is a warm, game-changing, heart-melting, alliance-forming moment between two tributes, it is ruined by the sound of a bell going off. "What is that?" I say out loud, and scramble up to the top of the tree. Angel snaps out her white wings and follows me up.

The bell stops at twelve tolls, and from my place at the top of the tree I see a bright, snaking line course through the night sky. It snaps down and touches a looming tree maybe two miles away from our own. The air sounds with the crackles of the lightning, and I watch as the tree is shocked. Then, just as it started, the lightning relinquishes and vaporizes into the night air, leaving behind it a low, grey cloud that begins to crackle with electricity. "What was _that_?" I repeat, my heart hammering in my chest.

I feel Angel gulp next to me, and her little body tenses as the clouds utter a deep rumble. "I…I don't know."

* * *

**A/N: It's mid-winter break where I am (Yay!) so I will be doing my best to post this fic regularly. So I hope you've enjoyed and I'll see you soon :)**


	17. Break

17. Break

Angel had fluttered back down to her branch with Nudge to go back to sleep. After watching the lightning storm for a while, I climb back down the tree to continue taking watch on my own branch. Time passes, the lightning stops, and a rainstorm that smells faintly of blood opens fire on that side of the island.

I pull back on my empty string and let go. The twang of my bowstring makes my branch sway, but I am too lost in my own thoughts to notice. Why would President Snow put a bunch of kid mutts into the Games? It was obvious that he wants them dead, and fears for the worst if they were killed out in the open or let go. That means that they must know something, or did something so rebellious they had to be put down.

Just like I'm being punished, I think, and grimace. The Games is no longer a place for children to kill each other while the rest of Panem looks on from their screens at home. It is no longer a place for the Capitol and the President to remind us of how insignificant we are, or how we can be controlled so easily. Now, it's used as the President's weapon, a unique, surefire way to get rid of people he doesn't want around any longer. I try to conjure up the other tributes in the arena with me.

Why does President Snow want them dead? What did Ella, what did Gloss or Cecelia or Chaff ever do to our President?

I continue to think about a reason for every single person in this arena, why they have an expiration date looming over their heads, as the rain shuts off and a grey cloud of mist begins to roam about. It is closer to us than the rain was, and from my position in the tree I can hear it almost sizzling and blistering in the air. It must be poison, I know. As I am about to daze off, the cannon goes off, reporting yet another tribute dead. The light starts to return to the island. There is a rustling in the trees below me, and I reach, as if on instinct, for an arrow.

Just as the sun is starting to turn the sky from pink to blue, I feel something change in the air. Everything inside of me tightens up, and I know not to reach for another arrow. The air smells like sweat and dirt…and blood.

My own runs cold, and I try to form a plan without saying anything. If I even dare to shout, the things above me will attack, and since this is the Games, they will go for the kill. Slowly, I get up from my branch, and keeping my eyes down, collect my things and tighten the knot around my spile. Then I start to slowly swing down the tree, stopping at Angel and Nudge's branch. I don't even manage to get onto Angel's branch, and she sits up bolt-right and shouts, "Monkeys! We've got company!"

Instantly a swarm of orange mutts falls on top of us, screaming in high-pitch voices and swiping with their sharp claws and teeth. Nudge screams herself awake as two of the mutts fall on top of her and start biting at her wings and face. I pull an arrow back in my bow and let it fly. One of the monkeys squeals and falls off Nudge. She scrambles off the branch, her wings already unfurling as she falls.

There is the sound of a struggle behind me, and I turn to see Angel and two monkeys after her. She raises an arm towards them and says in a low growl, "STOP."

The monkeys glitch for a moment, second-guess themselves, before a new programming kicks in and they start snapping their jaws and beating at their chests before coming towards Angel once more. She screams in disgust and whips out her wings. "I can't get into their minds! I can't stop them!" The young girl shrieks and dive-bombs out of sight as the monkeys follow her down.

The branch is only 20 feet from the ground, so I take the chance and jump down the rest of the way. My feet tingle and pain shoots up like daggers, but I push it down and reach for another arrow as more monkeys continue to claw at me.

Suddenly I am surrounded by a mass of orange. "RUN!" I scream, although it must be to myself, for I don't remember seeing anyone around me. Slinging my bow over my shoulder I take off running, and pull out the knife I forgot to give to Fang earlier. Wherever a mutt goes, my knife is sure to follow. The air grows heavy with the perfume of blood and sweat.

One of the monkeys is crawling and biting its way up my back, and starts to pull back my braid to take a chunk out of my neck when it squeals and releases me. I turn to see Iggy tossing the thing out of sight.

"It's about time you got here!" I shout at him, and shove the orange face of a monkey out of my way.

"It's always a pleasure saving your butt!" Iggy grins, and kicks a monkey square in the chest, sending it spiraling backwards.

I let out a scream as a mutt sinks its teeth into my forearm, and swat it away with the tip of my bow digging into its chest. We end up back to back, breathing hard and killing every mutt in our way. "I think it's time to fly, don't you?"

"I was just thinking the same thing!" Iggy grabs my arms, unfurls his graying wings and hurls us into the air.

"Watch out for the trees!" I bark, and guide his face towards the beach, which I can just see through the canopy. Iggy shoots off towards where I pointed him, and the monkeys clamber up the vines in order to follow. "Where are the rest?"

"At th—!" Iggy lets out a cry of a mixture of surprise and agony, and falls a few feet in the air. Without a second thought I pull the bow off my shoulder and take a shot. It pierces the monkey's chest, and the orange thing loosens its grip on Iggy's foot and drops back to the ground. "They're all at the beach." Iggy says again, and gasps for air. "Ow," he mutters under his breath.

When we finally reach the beach, Iggy tosses me into the sand and collapses into it himself, leaving us both gasping for air. Nudge and Gazzy are by his side in an instant. "Iggy!" she cries. "Your entire pant leg is soaked in blood! What happened? Did the monkeys get to you? I hope you're okay. I—"

"I'm fine, Nudge!" My district partner pushes Nudge away blindly by her head, and sits up, but even I can hear the pain in his voice. He feels his wound carefully, his fingertips so light he must have barely felt it. "I just need to clean it, get something to wrap it in." He rips one of his sleeves from his outfit, and closes his fingers around it. "This'll do."

Fang taps me on the shoulder, his eyes not leaving the jungle. I follow his line of sight back. I can no longer see the orange mutts, and hope that they don't follow us on the beach. The question of why they weren't attacking us was an important one for sure, but the lack of things trying to kill me is a welcome change, so I don't press it.

As Iggy goes to work on cleaning his bite, I check on the rest of our allies. Angel has a couple of bite marks across her arms and legs, and a few stripes from claws that turned her right pant leg to rags. Nudge has a few scratches on her arms and across her chest, but no blood. Fang has, as far as I can see, no marks on him at all. The whole right side of Gazzy's face is purple and blown up with puss, but I suspect that is from falling out of the tree earlier this night.

"Wait," I say, and recount everyone on the beach again. "We're missing someone."

"We are." Angel confirms, and comes to stand next to me. She looks up into my eyes, her own, I realize, exactly like Peeta's. "But who…?"

Iggy scrambles to his feet in alarm, patching up his ankle long forgotten. His unseeing eyes widen. "Where is Ella?"

I see Nudge and Fang exchange glances behind him, the panic making their hair rise slightly. "I thought you said you'd take her!" Nudge says through grit teeth. Fang shouts something unintelligible back at her and runs a hand through his hair.

"Where's Ella?" Iggy demands again, the color draining from his face.

As if on cue, an earsplitting shriek erupts from the jungle, and I now know why the monkeys stopped following us onto the beach.

They had been attacking Ella.


	18. Wave Goodbye

18. Wave Goodbye

Before the rest of us can react, Iggy takes off towards the scream, spraying us with sand. Gazzy catches my eye, and we nod at each other. Without a word, we follow our friend back into the jungle, armed with six arrows and a knife each. I don't have to tell Fang to stay back, but Nudge runs after us, tears swimming in her big brown eyes. "Stay here!" I instruct, and wave her away.

"No! It's my fault she's…I mean, I just can't…" she blubbers.

Motioning for Gazzy to go ahead, I stop to look back at Fang with harried earnest as he sways in the rising sun. "Keep her here?" I ask. Before he can respond, I turn and take off sprinting.

The trail smells of blood, but the bodies of the mutts we killed are gone. As I make my way towards the whisperings of the jungle, I know that my weapons have vanished, along with the monkeys' bodies. The six remaining arrows in the quiver hit against my back as I continue deeper in.

When I reach my allies, they are still running along the trees and vines. Falling alongside Gazzy, I say under my breath, "Why's Ella so important to him?"

"She—"

The young boy is cut off as we hear Ella screech Iggy's name. "Ella!" He bellows, and falls blindly into a small clearing in the jungle.

She's sitting in the middle of a patch of thick moss, unarmed and looking terrified. There are four monkeys tearing at her skin and face. I can hear them gnashing at her skin and biting away at her flesh, and I know that the blind one can hear it, too. One turns to look at us, and I see the blood drip from its bared teeth.

"ELLA!" Iggy roars again, and rushes toward them. His wings snap open, and the mutts stop to look upon this sight of terror.

Gazzy and I watch with wide eyes as Iggy picks up one of the orange things, and splits its neck in two with his bare hands. The body falls to the ground with a thump. The other three growl at Iggy, eyeing him from their defensive spot over Ella's body. The mutt sitting over her bloodied chest screeches a command, and the others leap up on either side of Iggy and attack.

"Five and seven!" Gazzy yells, and Iggy lands a fist in the mutt's face. The other lands on his shoulder and start to tear at his wings, and scrambles onto his back, trying to find a notch to sink his fangs into.

"Hold still!" I instruct, and pull an arrow back. I find my mark, and let the arrow fly.

As I do, we hear the unmistakable sound of flesh being stripped from bone, and a girl writhing on the ground, gasping for air. I pull back another and hit the mutt before it can retract both fangs out of Ella's jugular.

Iggy falls back onto his knees and crawls over to where he hears the blood spill onto the moss below Ella's neck. "No, don't move!" He whispers, and I see something creep into his blind eyes. Terror.

Gazzy presses his tiny body against me, and I feel him tremble uncontrollably. I watch, frozen, as Iggy pulls District 1's head into his lap.

"Sh, shh," he says through unbroken tears. "I'm here. They aren't going to hurt you anymore."

She smiles, her face growing paler by the second. The crimson blood continues to flow freely from the puncture wounds in her neck. "You found me."

Iggy smiles bitterly, and a tear cascades down his cheek. "You're going to be okay. We just need to patch you up, stop the bleeding…" Ella, with the rest of her strength, lifts a finger up and puts it to his lips.

Through all the pain, her eyes twinkle and she whispers, "It's too late, Iggy."

"No it's not. We can still save you," Iggy says indignantly. "Can't we?" He turns his head towards me. "Can't we, Katniss?"

I open my mouth to answer him, but Gazzy tugs at my shirt sleeve, and shakes his head. Everything inside me screams to keep moving, but I swallow the feeling down, along with the memories that come back to me as I watch Iggy and Ella spend her last minute together.

The smell of fresh blood, the terrified screams of a young girl, the shaking of Iggy's hand as he pushes her hair away from her eyes as she struggles for air, it all reminds me of one person.

"_You have to win_," a voice says, and I know that it is not Ella's. I will, I promise, but I know that it is not enough for my ghost. "_Sing_," the voice whispers. My eyes begin to fill with sudden tears, but it is not the dying girl in front of me that causes this.

For you Rue, of course, I think. I look on blankly over the two in the clearing, huddled together as Ella's life comes to a close. It reminds me so much of Rue's death, out in that clearing, except now I am just a bystander. Iggy is now in my position, and Ella, Rue's. His pants are now slick with blood, and there are swipes of it over Iggy's lips and chin, where Ella must have touched him. One of his hands is in hers, and the other is trying to staunch the blood flow. His fingers covered in blood glow in the morning light.

Dropping to my knees, I open my mouth and softly sing the first song that comes to mind.

"_The King walked in his garden green_

_Where grew a marvelous tree;_

_And out of its leaves came singing birds_

_By one, and two and three._

"_The first bird had wings of white,_

_The second had wings of gold,_

_The third had wings of deepest blue_

_Most beauteous to behold._

"_The white bird flew to the northern land,_

_The gold bird flew to the west,_

_The blue bird flew to the cold, cold south_

_Where never bird might rest."_

Ella's eyelids flutter, and her breathing becomes labored, but I can't stop now. Not for her, not for Iggy, and not for Rue. Gazzy leans against me, the young boy mesmerized by the captivating and heartbreaking scene before him. My voice cracks as I continue,

"_Instead she took the grey sea-shell_

_And held it to his ear,_

_She pressed it close and soon the King_

_A strange, sweet song did hear._

"_He raised the fair maid by the hand_

_Until she stood at his side;_

_Then he gave her the golden ring_

_And took her for his bride."_

Her cannon fires, and I see her hand release Iggy's. Her slender fingers slip out of his grasp, his shoulders trembling as the hot tears start falling. I can feel a single tear upon my own face, and I want to stop, but I don't.

"_And at their window sang the birds,_

_They sang the whole night through,_

_Then off they went at break of day,_

_The white, the gold, and the blue."_

Everything is silent by the time the final note vibrates in my hoarse throat. If the song has affected my winged allies, they don't say anything. "I'm sorry," I rasp, breaking the silence before it has a chance to settle in. "I didn't…I didn't know what else to sing."

Gazzy is breathing hard through his nose, trying to stop the sympathetic tears from spilling. I reach over to wipe his tears away with my thumb, much like I would to Prim. In turn, the boy with the brown, almost gold, feathers rubs his cheek affectionately at my side. Placing my arm protectively around his shoulders, I set my own cheek over his head and watch as Iggy pulls Ella's lifeless body up into a goodbye kiss.

We sit there for what seems like forever, until I get up and walk over to Iggy. He knows that I approach him, but does nothing. He reaches out his long fingers and follows the blood that trails down her neck and onto her chest. "Come on," I say softly, and stoop down to pluck my arrows from the remaining bodies of mutts. "We should go."

Iggy releases a trembling breath. "Alright." He replies numbly, and gets up with his back turned.

…

"Poor, poor girl," Jeb isn't sneering anymore. He sounds almost regretful to Max, and she knows she can use this to her advantage.

"She was…Dr. Martinez's daughter, wasn't she?" Max asks, and her voice is coated with innocence. But even through her façade, she can feel herself cracking. Ella was not only Valencia's daughter, but Max's half-sister and connection to the world outside her mutt crate. She was the one that convinced Dr. Martinez to help the Flock escape in the first place.

"You know that better than I," Jeb drones, and writes something down on his clipboard. Max frowns at her failed attempt at sweet-talking her way to an escape, and looks back at the screen.

She watches as a girl, some Catnip person, puts her arm around Gazzy and tries to comfort _her_ baby, _her_ warrior. Max feels a growl form in the back of her throat as she watches it work, and Gazzy begins to affectionately rub his cheek against the girl. That was what he did to Max after a long day of abuse from the scientists.

Max thought that it should be her up there, being the leader of her troops, and not some 'girl on fire.'

"Why do I have to watch this?" She asks, her voice as harsh as she can make it without any food or water. They hadn't fed her since the Hunger Games began.

There is the sound of more scribbling on paper as the screen cuts to more fake banter between Caesar and Claudius. Finally Jeb sighs as he removes his glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"It's another test, isn't it." Max's voice is flat, because she knows that this is fact, not question. "To see how long it'll take before I break. To find where my breaking point is." If Max, could cross her arms across her body, she would've. Instead, she settles for blowing the hair out of her eyes and saying proudly, "You shouldn't waste your time. I don't have one."

Jeb Batchelder just chuckles at her ignorance.

* * *

**A/N: And the song comes back. Again. I swear to you, it does have a purpose! That just won't be revealed until much, much later. Um...spoiler alert? Anyways, I really want to thank you, thank all of your for the time you take to read this fic and for some of you, even review it! You don't know just how happy I am when I see another email regarding a review for this story :) So thanks!**


	19. Clean

19. Clean

I have so many questions that no one in the arena can produce answers for. Based on the way that Angel looks at me from the glittering water, I know that she's looking for the same thing as I am.

An explanation.

When we got back to the beach, Nudge and Angel were running around like two chickens with their heads cut off, frantic in every way possible. The older girl, ever the dramatic one, ran up to us in tears. "It's Fang. He just—he just collapsed on the beach! We didn't know what to do, we just—"

As I ask her to show me, I can't help but feel that my winged allies are in more dire need of a mother than anything. The sand is soft beneath my knees as I sit down next to Fang. He cringes in pain. "What happened to you?" I ask lightheartedly.

"S'nothing," he mutters, and waves me away. "Jus' a little scratch."

"So I've heard." I ignore his pleas to be left alone, and unzip the top of his suit. The inside is covered with blood, and the stench makes me crinkle my nose. What's this? I lift up the wet shirt underneath, and Fang starts to gripe. "Oh grow up," I snap, and peel the shirt up.

Nudge stifles a gasp behind me, but I pretend it's nothing I haven't really seen before. Despite how I act, I can feel a cold sweat appear on my brow. I've never seen this much blood come from such bites. "Just a little blood," I assure my patient, and turn to face the jungle.

"Told you so," he grunts back.

We don't have long before someone finds us out in the open, and I have to get Fang patched up. "Nudge, Angel, get me some moss, a few large leaves, and a vine." They nod at me and fly off. As they go, I hear them whisper to each other and think of my prep team, my odd little birds, and Cinna. Where is he? What happened back at the tribute's tower?

Turning back to my patient, I push the hair and my piling-up question out of my face and huff, "How in _hell_ did this happen, Fang?"

"The mutts—"

"—don't make gashes this big, Fang." I cut him off. "What happened?" he mumbles something into the sand, pressing the powder into the side of his face. I wait for a further explanation, but I know I won't get one, and get to my feet. "Gazzy?" I call. A small blonde head pops up from the water. "Can you help me get Fang into the water?"

Gazzy swims ashore, per my request, and pushes the water from his eyes. We grab one of Fang's feet each, and slowly drag him through the sand and into the warm saltwater. He groans slightly, and lets his head loll about. Fang opens his mouth and mumbles again, only to be submerged in water. He begins to bubble, but doesn't come up for air. Peering down at him, I ask, "Does he normally do that?"

"I think so. I think he developed gills a long time ago, or something," Gazzy shrugs. When I look up into the young boy's eyes, the water reflects in it, and for a moment I think I see Peeta there, smiling back at me. Something in my chest stirs, like hot embers being blown on by a careful wind. But why?

I put this down as another question with no answer, and start to scrub the blood off of Fang's stomach.

With the blood gone, all that is left of Fang's torso is the few teeth marks from the mutts and…

"Fang?"

He bubbles in response. Gripping his thick black hair firmly in my hand, I pull him up from the water. "Fang?" I say again, harsher than I intend at first.

"Hmm?" His voice sounds better, if you consider less complaint and more mockery 'better.'

"Why do you have three gashes on your side?"

"I—" He frowns, and stands up in the seawater. While it comes up over my hips, the water level barely reaches the top of Fang's thighs. He looks down to inspect what I guess to be reopened battle scars. "Where did that come from?"

Squinting at him, I poke at his side and say, "These wounds are old news, Fang. How do you not know where they came from?"

"I remember…I remember something about them." Fang grows quiet. And then he says something, but whatever he says is washed away by the sound of the waves.

"What?"

He looks into my eyes, his face solid and calculating and furrowed at the brow. "Ari." Then Fang presses his fingers to his temple and continues, "But I…that's all I remember."

Despite everything pressing me to ask who Ari was, I brush off my conscious. It hasn't been much help lately, anyways. "Come on," I lead Fang back to the shore. "Let's get those monkey bites cleaned. And then we have to keep moving." I take a sweeping glance at the rest of the arena, unmoving and utterly green. Finnick was right, when he said that it would be wise to survey the rest of the arena. There's something odd about it, and I can't seem to pinpoint what that thing is.

…

Peeta feels like punching a wall whenever Gale opens his mouth, or is even in the same room. The hunter feels the need to put a dash of mystery in everything he does. When passing the bread to a fellow rebel at breakfast that morning, he looked the revolutionary in the eye and said, "How do we know that this is even real?" To which the rest of the rebels began to go off continuing their little secret rebellion chants until Peeta can't take it anymore and has to abruptly get up from the table and leave the room.

Of course, Gale is following not even three steps behind. "What's wrong, Mellark?"

"Everything—I mean nothing. Nothing's wrong." Peeta smiles thinly at his enemy turned companion turned secret rebel turned who knows what now, and wants nothing more than to get out of Lionel's house and escape everything that has to do with Gale Hawthorne.

"Oh, come on, Peeta. This can't really disconcert you _that_ much…can it?" For once, Gale's tone is not mocking or even mean; it's simply concerned, and maybe a little bit bemused.

"Well, living in Panem all my life and not knowing that there was a rebellion building up right under my nose…I think I have the right to be a little _disconcerted_." Peeta bites back, and has to mentally hold himself back from punching Gale in the face again, mostly because he knows that Gale would win the fight anyways.

Gale wraps his arm around Peeta's broad shoulders as a friendly gesture and says wistfully, "Just think: by this time next year, you and Katniss will be free to live a life together, free from all of this Capitol nonsense and the Hunger Games."

The baker wants nothing more than to break free of Gale's hold and tell him that he and Katniss will never be free from the Hunger Games—that they will always have the nightmares and the ghosts that hold them back at night, the ones they have to hold onto each other to get rid of. He wants to tell the hunter just how much time in his day is taken up by the images of the Games that scarred him, that left him nothing more than a shell of his former self. He wants to tell him that Katniss wasn't the only one that suffered; Peeta suffered in more ways than Gale could ever imagine. Gale was not visited by President Snow, questioned and threatened by him, right after he was removed from the arena. Gale had not been tortured by the President, as Snow tried to pry out of him the reason why Katniss had pulled out the berries.

And Katniss had wondered why attaching a fake foot onto Peeta Mellark had taken so long.

Instead of saying everything that had just come to mind, Peeta pushes those unnerving thoughts and says, "What do you mean 'Katniss and me'? Do you mean…"

Gale smiles warmly at him, but there are flecks of the thought _oh, Peeta_ in his eyes. "I love Katniss with all my heart, never forget that. But the way you two looked, it was just so…"

"Perfect?" Peeta manages to contain a scoff.

The hunter grimaces at the word. "Not exactly how I would put it, but yeah. Perfect."

Again, Peeta wants nothing more than to tell Gale the truth. About how he wasn't as dumb as he looked; he knew that Katniss, and the people she loved, were all threatened by President Snow. He knew that she had faked their entire on-stage relationship, and the wedding planning, and the kisses and the Games. He had known all along, ever since the beginning when she attacked him after the interviews, but chose to ignore it. Because he got to be with the person he had loved for almost his entire life. He was able to hold her and look into her grey eyes and kiss her, knowing that she couldn't resist. Peeta knew that Katniss never would have acted the way she did otherwise. He had taken advantage of Katniss's disadvantage, and fell even more in love with the girl on fire.

The only thing he couldn't explain was the nights they spent together. Why had she come for him for help, of all people? Why had Katniss, someone who had said that she can't stand him, come to _him_ for help to relieve her of her ghosts?

"So…you're giving Katniss to me?" Peeta asks, almost shyly, unsure of the ground he is stepping onto.

"Well," Gale shrugs. "Sort of. Think of it as a peace-offering with a price."

"Since when do peace-offerings come with a price?"

"Quiet, young one." Gale grins kindly down at the other boy, his voice no longer taunting but in turn, playful. "It's more of a peace-offering with a…proposition.

"See, when Katniss makes it out alive, there is no doubt in my mind that one, if not both of us, will be putting our lives on the line for hers. So I say that if one of us dies, the other has to promise to stay with Katniss until the very end."

"And what if none of us die?"

A pause. "Then we let our girl pick who she wants to be with."

"Then I think that this is something we can both agree on." Peeta puts his hand out to shake. "From now on, we work together. As a team."

"Yes." The hunter puts his hand in the baker's, and grey eyes meet the blue. "As a team."

* * *

**A/N: Look at my boys growing up! /Tears I like writing about these two more than the actual storyline…Someone earlier had asked why Peeta was deemed so useless and Gale so arrogant, but this is sort of why. To show how they change each other, I mean.**

**Did I mention writing this sort of made me ship them? (LOL DON'T KILL ME I WUV YOU GUYS FOR READING :3)**


	20. Question

20. Question

Max awakens to the sound of a phone ringing. Instantly she feels alert, and lifts up her head. The live broadcast of the Games is still playing on the screen in front of her, the words muddled, as she wasn't paying much attention. The girl moves her head back and forth to get rid of the crick in her neck, and buy herself some time. Someone behind her answers the phone. "Yes?" his voice is quiet.

As she watches the screen, the images fly past her in a hurry. Max pays no attention to what's actually going on. She tests the shackles around her wrists, which are bruised from the numerous times she's tried to break free. They still don't comply. Her wings ache and demand to be stretched out and used for the first time in months. Closing her eyes, Max starts to think as hard as she can, _Angel? I could really use your powers right now, sweetie. Where are you?_

But something makes her stop. "Yes," Jeb lowers his voice even further. "The subject is ready. Send him in. No, sir, I promise. They will not survive." The phone clicks in its receiver, and Max's hair bristles against her skin.

…

As it turns out, my district partner's cooking is better than the food in the Capitol. I tear into the raw shellfish he prepared just minutes ago. "This is amazing, Iggy," I compliment between mouthfuls. Even so, I'm still on edge, waiting for the next attack. We had moved down the beach, to get away from the mutts in case they return, and away from the thought of Ella, at least for Iggy's sake. It had already been a couple hours, but I knew that it would take a lot more than that to heal Iggy's emotion wounds.

"Yeah," Nudge agrees wholeheartedly. "He's one of the best cooks. He can make anything taste good! Even…" her voice trails off as she swallows.

"Even roasted squirrel." Fang finishes for her, and wipes his mouth unceremoniously on the back of his hand. Everything around me falls silent at Fang's comment, and I can't help but wonder why that is. I know from personal experience that nobody can make roasted squirrel taste good, not even Greasy Sae.

The sound of shells being sucked dry interrupts my thoughts of home, and I turn to see Gazzy lick his lips greedily. There is a stack of empty shells sitting beside him in the shade of the jungle. "I'm still hungry," he proclaims, and looks to Angel for help.

The young girl sighs in defeat, but I know that she didn't try very hard to resist. Breathing in deeply, the young girl focuses her powers and presses her fingers to her temple. After a moment, little figures began to crawl up from the water, and make their way towards Iggy, where they promptly fell over and died.

"Wow," I breathe, unable to tear my eyes away from the squirming shrimp-looking things. "How'd you…" my voice trails off as Iggy reaches for the shrimp and begins to de-shell them.

"They don't mind being eaten." Angel smiles and finishes off her first round of food. "I just told them that they could help by letting us eat them. They were more than happy to help."

"Oh." I say as Iggy hands me a fresh one, and I take it gratefully. I never thought that the things I hunt could feel things like we can. If Angel wants to comment on my thoughts, she is stopped by a painful, high-pitched sonic wave. We drop everything to protect our ears from the sound.

"What _is_ that?" I shout over the noise. I open one eye delicately to look at Iggy. His ears perk up, and I steel myself. That sort of movement from Iggy can only mean one thing. "Something's coming!" I yell through the pain, and jump up, grabbing my bow as I do so. The rest of my allies follow suit, ignoring the pain and readying for anything. If anyone can make wiping their mouth look dangerous and life-threatening, Nudge can. She snaps open her tawny wings and coils her hands into fists.

And just like that, the noise stops, and everything turns eerily silent. "Maybe moving down the beach wasn't such a good idea…" I hear Gazzy murmur. There is a rustling in the trees behind me, and I pull back the arrow in my hands.

"Oh, look at you five," a voice purrs. It can't be older than Gale.

Fang stiffens next to me.

"You so lost without your little leader, your little _Max_." The voice taunts again.

"Shut up!" Fang growls. A vein in his neck twitches slightly. "You don't know what you're talking about." The arrow grows heavy at my fingertips at the sound of this _Max_ again.

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, my friend. That's where you are so, so wrong." We hear graceful wings beating steadily, and a figure with chocolate feathers emerges from the dark shadows of the jungle. He's wearing some sort of denim pants and a clean white t-shirt. As he looks up and takes us in, I think I see clear turquoise in his eyes, but I blink and they are tainted with scarlet. The new bird kid is a mutt. He curls his lips into a sort of snarly grin. "Look at you. Falling apart at the seams.

"Broken." Iggy turns away from the sound of the person's voice.

"Hurt." Gazzy's angry gaze breaks off into an unsure glance at his sandy feet.

"Betrayed." Fang seems as if he wants to back down, but something changes inside him, and he picks up his chin.

I hear Angel gasp somewhere behind me. "Yes, Angel, I see it." The mutt with dirty blonde curls smiles thinly. "The future. I can see it all. Your flock, and everyone in it, will disperse, because there will be no one left after this. None of you will survive."

I've heard enough. Releasing the taut string, I let my arrow fly. The boy that floats just feet from the ground snatches my weapon out of thin air, and tosses it aside like it's a child's plaything. He gazes into my eyes, and I feel myself freeze, the bow firm in my hand. He turns his smile towards me, but everything about him seems evil. "And you. The girl on fire. The wannabe bird kid. I know all about you." Flapping his wings effortlessly, the boy slinks forward through the air until he and I are inches away. I try to stand tall, but looking into the mutt's crimson eyes makes me want to back off, to run off and hide. But that is not who I am, I remind myself. I am not one to give up. Straightening my spine, I watch as the winged boy's eyes take in my body, and stares back at me devilishly.

The smile is gone, and he spits at me, "Pitiful little Katniss. The girl who won over the Capitol and the Games on a whim. What are you doing, putting all your birds in one basket?" He gestures towards the allies behind me, raising his eyebrows at me when his hand is outstretched.

"I believe the phrase you're looking for is 'putting your eggs in one basket,'" I grind out, and reach for another arrow.

The corners of his mouth twitch. "I know what I said, Katniss." He says my name slowly, almost melodically. I gulp down.

"Who are you?" Nudge demands, her voice shaking. I mentally give her some credit for trying to stay strong.

The mutt smiles, and falls onto the sand gracefully. "I am your worst nightmare." Then he opens his mouth and lets out a sonic wave that has us clutching onto our ears and begging for mercy.

* * *

**A/N: I know that he's supposed to sing so beautifully it mesmerizes people, but the Beast is a mutt, a creation of the Capitol to torture and kill his targets, so now he's equipped with sonic weaponry. Mwahaha**


	21. And Answer

21. And Answer

When I open my eyes again, I am alone, crouched in a fetal position. At least, I think I am. Straightening up, I realize that the rest of my allies are lying face down in the sand, knocked out cold. Our worst nightmare is hovering above us, and clucking his tongue. "Who knew that they would be so easily taken down?" He has something in his hand, something I can't quite identify. Our nightmare shrugs. "Oh well." His hand glints, and he goes in for the kill, and Fang is the first on his list.

If anybody else was in my place, they would've screamed as the knife plunges into Fang's body. But I knew that the only way I could really stop the winged boy from killing my allies was to kill him first. Without thinking, I hurl myself at the beast and catch him at the waist. He yelps slightly, and we fall to the ground in a heap. I pluck my knife from my belt and try to find a place in the mutt to sheath my weapon. It finds his side, and I grit my teeth and twist it in all the way to the handle. The beast howls out sonic waves, making me buckle in pain. We switch positions, and now he is leaning over me, panting and frowning at me with his deep red eyes. He quips something at me, but his last sonic attack is still pulsing through my ears and drowning out anything my attacker might say. Finally, the beast raises a hand to the light and in it glints my knife wet with his blood. I want to look away, but I can't; I am mesmerized by the blade coming down to meet my flesh.

The sharp agony shoots up and down me as the tips digs into my chest and stays there. Based on the point of the pain, I can only guess that someone has stopped the mutt halfway, causing the knife to notch itself under my heart instead of in it. Everything starts to go in and out of focus until it makes me dizzy, but my limbs feel on fire and I can't seem to move and relieve myself of this vertigo. Someone shouts something, and it vibrates in my ears. I feel their rough arms pulling me back into the jungle, into safety. They prop me up against a tree, in the cool shade, and pulls the blade from its place, jostled in between two of my ribs under my heart. I think I feel myself scream and vomit all over my suit, but I can't be sure. Closing my eyes, I am left alone with this one person taking care of me while the action takes place back on the shore.

As I sit in the shade, I can't help but wander back to my never-ending list of questions. Mentally pilfering through, I finally find one that I can focus on, to keep myself away from thinking about the burning pain in my chest.

Why were Ella and Valencia Martinez so important?

I know that if they weren't pertaining to my mutated allies, they wouldn't be sent in the Hunger Games. So what did they do that sent them on a one-way trip to their own demise? Based on what I've seen with the limited interaction between Ella and Iggy, they knew each other long before the Quarter Quell. They might have even been in love. Not quite sure how love could bloom in a laboratory, but it's not that uncommon. Love can grow almost anywhere—just look at my parents, or my fabricated relationship with Peeta.

It could have something to do with this name that keeps surfacing with the bird kids; someone named Max. Who could that possibly be? I remember Gazzy saying once that he felt as if someone was missing. Could it be Max?

…

"Dylan!" Angel screams, and the knife in his hand plunges halfway into Katniss's chest and stops. He clambers off of her, and onto his knees in a hurry. _Switch the cameras. Find someone else to look at._ Angel pleads in her head, and pushes the thought off into Plutarch Heavensbee somewhere outside of the arena. The girl doesn't have time to ensure that her message is received, and she turns her attention to the boy coughing at her feet.

He looks up at her, his turquoise eyes wide and terrified. "Angel?" he whispers. Then something contorts his body, and the beast programming takes over again. He looks into Angel's blue eyes with his blood-colored ones. He snarls, "You really thought that could work?"

"It was worth a shot," she says under her breath, and whips out her white wings. She takes off, hoping to buy the rest of the flock enough time to remove Katniss from the scene and help her take down Dylan. "Let's see if you remember how to fly!" she shouts down at him.

Tucking something into the back of his jeans, Dylan starts to pump his dark chocolate wings and shoots up to follow the young girl. As she goes as fast as she can into the air, she instructs Fang to hide Katniss in the jungle and pushes the message along.

Back on the ground, Fang collects the command and sits up rubbing his head. He shakes Nudge awake harshly, and looks around to find his ally convulsing and bleeding out onto the sand. "Okay, Everdeen," he grunts as he shuffles over to pick the girl up. "Time to move you." With that, he lifts the oddly light hunter up, her head and the grip of the knife embedded in her ribs leaning against Fang's chest. Finding a cool place just on the border between the sand and the jungle, the winged kid sets Katniss down against a tree. "This is only going to hurt…a lot." He quips nonchalantly and pulls the knife out from his ally's chest. She roars, leans over, and vomits all over herself.

Fang sits back on his heels, tilts his head, and looks over the girl. "So am I going to have to clean you up or what?"

As he says this, the dark-looking boy hears Angel scream in terror, and runs off to help his little, well, angel.

"I don't want to hurt you!" Angel cries breathlessly, and takes a dive as the beast swings at her in the air. Squealing, the little girl touches down on the beach and runs to Fang. "I can't do anything, Fang! Every time I try and get into his head, something pushes me out!"

The older boy leans down and puts a hand on her shoulder. He looks her square in the eye. "I know that you two were close friends before…" he shakes his head. "Look, Angel, sweetie, I don't think we can take him down without hurting him. We have to do whatever it takes to survive and get out of here. Do you understand?"

She nods numbly. "Just don't kill him."

Standing up, Fang shakes his raven-like wings open and steels himself. "No promises," he mutters, and shoots up into the air. He is ready to taste blood.

Dylan's blood.

"DYLAN!" the dark boy shouts over the wind. His target grins, and pushes his latest opponent, Gazzy, into Nudge and they fall back down to the arena in a heap. Iggy is hovering in the background as he tosses something back and forth with his hands. Fang knows exactly what it is. As he flies past his blind friend, he reaches out and taps him twice on the hand. _Wait for my signal._

"Oh, Fang, nice of you to finally join us," the beast shouts back, cracking his knuckles. "I was wondering when we would finally have our showdown, just you and me."

"We've had a showdown, Dylan! We were friends before…" again, Fang stops himself. "What happened?"

"Who knows?" the beast bellows. "In all seriousness, Fang, who the hell cares? Everyone knows I'm the better fighter. What does matter is right here, right now. And right now, I am about to tear your freaking heart out." And with that, he lunges for Fang, a dripping blade gleaming in his hand.

He swerves out of the way, but not without a scratch; the knife digs slightly into his left wing. Angrier than ever, Fang throws his attacker a punch in the face, causing blood to spurt out of his nose, and the beast barrels backwards in the air. When he stops moving, Fang goes in again and kicks him square in the chest. He hears the beast's breath leave him with an _oof_, and the raven-like boy can't help but let a little satisfaction fill him up.

"Who's the better fighter now?" Fang taunts.

For a moment the tribute can't hear anything. And then there is this low, ominous chuckle. Fang squints at the beast and watches as he goes from a quiet chuckle to an all-out super-evil-genius laugh, as blood trickles from his broken nose. Then the beast looks at Fang with his cold eyes and says, "I am."

And then he begins to roll his neck clockwise. As he does, Fang watches in horror as the blood clears up, and his nose straightens. The stab-wound on his side that must have only come from Katniss closes up until there's nothing left but a puckered scar. His wings, if anything, grow fuller and bigger than they were before. Finally, the beast sets his eye back on his enemy and says with a demon's grin, "Gotcha."

All Fang wants to do now is punch Dylan in his goddamn perfect face. But he composes himself, knowing that if the beast didn't, Angel would kill him, and make it ten times worse. So he just shrugs, sticks his hands into his belt like it has pockets, and starts to fall feet first, his wings closing against the wind. When he gets to about 20 feet above the surface, Fang snaps his wings back open against the wind current, banks to the left and yells, "Iggy! Double time, eight o'clock!"

With that, the blind boy throws two disks at the beast's direction, and ducks down just in time before his bombs explode and send Dylan rocketing at 90 miles an hour towards the ground.

* * *

**A/N: Mad Genius Iggy to the rescue! He _has_ been known to make a bomb out of virtually anything.**


	22. Explain

22. Explain

Angel doesn't know how Iggy was able to make two whole bombs during the 23 hours they were in the arena, but she doesn't care. Hand over her mouth, she watches as Dylan falls from the sky, his wings smoking and his clothes tattered. He opens his eyes in sheer terror and from the beach she sees their color. Turquoise.

_No!_ She thinks, and reaches for him with her tiny hand, knowing that she would never get to him in time. He was no longer the beast when he hit the surface. "Dylan!" Angel cries, and runs for his mangled body in the sand.

Two pale, blood-streaked arms hold her back. "You can't help him!" Gazzy struggles to get out as he holds his sister back. "He's not Dylan anymore!"

If Angel is shocked that her brother remembers who Dylan is, she chooses ignore it and keeps trying to break away. Tears start to bubble up in her eyes. "No, Gazzy! Didn't you see? It wasn't the beast anymore—he was Dylan when he fell. He was Dylan, and we killed him! Let me GO!" She kicks her brother in the shins and she's free. Angel runs straight for her old friend.

And stops when she realizes that Dylan might be dead, but the beast is not.

The young girl watches in horror as the blood seeps back into the beast's body. He lifts up his head just as his grotesque features close up and right themselves. Then he jumps swiftly to his feet and readies himself to kill. The blood is set in his irises. He lifts his nose to the air, obvious hearing something that Angel doesn't. The beast salutes Angel, Gazzy, and Nudge, and slinks back into the jungle with a wicked grin.

Something snaps inside Gazzy, and he runs after the beast yelling and hurling knives, "Come back here and fight, you coward!" But when he reaches the tree line, the beast is gone, with no trace left behind to acknowledge that he was ever there.

…

I feel like I'm being dunked repeatedly in a bucket of water. Spluttering awake, I breathe in the liquid and cough violently. I try to sit up, only to be sucked back into the salt. Finally, someone strong pulls me up by the arms and I gasp for air, my eyes fluttering open.

"She's awake!" Nudge's voice chirps excitedly.

"Give her some space, Nudge. I have to get her back onto the shore." Comes Fang's irritated one.

My chest feels as if it's on fire and my head pounds fiercely. "I feel like I've been hit by a train," I mutter groggily, and feel myself being carried from the water to the shore and into the slight coolness of the jungle.

"Well, Dylan did almost slice your heart open with a knife, so…" Iggy trails off.

"That _thing_ has a name?"

"Of course he does!" Angel snaps. I almost forgot she was there. Struggling to sit up in Fang's grip, I glance over at her.

"Oh?" I ask, an eyebrow rising. I am slightly amused, and need something to keep my mind off the pain. "And you would know this because…?"

Angel won't meet my eyes as we continue further into the jungle. When she finally speaks, her voice sounds meek, and hurt. "Because he was my friend."

I feel Fang and Nudge exchange a knowing glance behind me, but I have to keep prodding. The pain at my ribcage is starting to become overwhelming and spins my head. I _need_ this distraction. "And? What happened?"

"I…" Angel's voice becomes softer, and she looks over at Gazzy.

They seem to be having a mental battle, because finally Gazzy lets out an angry sigh and says, "Go ahead. Tell her our history with your dear friend who just tried to _kill us_."

Angel nods. "It started before Panem came into existence. Dylan wasn't created the same time we all were, but when we met him I knew he could be trusted."

Fang scoffs, making me bounce against his chest.

Ignoring him, the girl continues. "After she picked Fang over Dylan, he began to become depressed. He had already tried to commit suicide once, and I was picked to make sure that he doesn't succeed at a second attempt.

"Sometimes, when we would talk, Dylan would mention things about seeing the future and people across time. He began to realize his true mutation, which was to see the future. And in it, after the apocalypse, he saw a man with white hair and a rose in his hand."

I feel myself scowl. "Snow."

The girl concedes. "Yes. He saw Snow. It was one of the last things he saw before Jeb, and the rest of the scientists turned on us, and froze us like we were whole chickens that could be taken out of the freezer and used as a meal for a later time."

"Yeah, they were pretty close; Angel and Dylan, I mean." Iggy agrees, his fingers tailing my arms slightly to keep in line with us. "Always going off about their psychic powers like a bunch of kids."

"I _was_ just a kid," Angel frowns, and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Where are we going?" I break in to try and diffuse the sudden tension in the air.

"We're going back into the jungle, to hide out for a little bit while we try to find a way to get you back on your feet faster." Fang replies.

I turn my head to take in the rest of my allies. "What about you guys? I saw the stuff those monkeys did to you, and then how the beast—Dylan—attacked you. How is it possible that you came out without a single scratch?"

Gazzy smiles at me. "We're mutts; we heal quicker than you eggshell humans. It's in our DNA."

"Yeah, our enhanced DNA." Nudge mutters under her breath. From the sound of her voice, I can only guess that she's the one in the group that wishes she wasn't a mutt. A freak.

But I ignore her comment and let Angel's story sink in. When we reach a certain point, Iggy stops us and says, "There's something up ahead. A…force field of sorts. I can hear it buzzing. We shouldn't walk into it, or else…" he demonstrates the sound of fried human. "Dead."

Fang props me up against a tree, and I can finally get a good, thorough look at myself. My suit, once clean, is now covered in blood and stains of something I can't identify. Right under my heart is the source of the pain, and a big patch of moss set over it to sop up the excess blood. My hair, still damp and heavy against my back, is coming loose from my blade. As the boys set up camp, Nudge undoes the braid and then redoes it, her fingers as quick as Cinna's.

"It just…sucks so much," the District 11 girl tries at conversation, but it goes from a light to a heavy topic fast. "At some point, in order for these Games to be over, all of us are going to have to die except for one." She sighs. "I don't think I could bear to lose any of you…" her voice trails off and her large brown eyes fall upon my district partner preparing food by bouncing it off the force field. The spots around her eyes crinkle slightly.

Following her eyes, I swallow down. I knew this before, but now it is laid out for me—Nudge likes Iggy, and probably has since the beginning Angel was referring to. And she was supposed to take Ella to the beach during the orange mutt attack—for some reason, my mind clings onto that one memory. Without looking at the mocha-skinned girl I say lightly, "So is that why you let Ella be killed by the mutts?"

Her fingers freeze in my hair. Iggy's ears perk up, and I know he's heard what I have to say.

* * *

**A/N: Katniss just trying to diffuse the tension. NOT**


	23. Relay

23. Relay

The food lay long forgotten on large flat leaves next to the alleged force field, cold and picked at blandly by the rest of us sitting idly by watching the fight that is going down right in front of our face. Angel sits next to me, watching carefully and wondering when to jump in. Gazzy, opposite me, looks ready to do the same thing. Fang takes a piece of 'field-fried shellfish, and sits down for dinner and a show. I am idle, waiting for either someone to rip the other's throat out, or for someone else to be taken out trying to tear the two apart.

"I told you specifically to take Ella to safety!" Iggy yells, his face inches away from Nudge, who looks close to tears.

"I did!" she retorts. "We were almost to the beach and a bunch of mutts attacked us in the air. I dropped her to protect us—"

"You dropped her to protect yourself!" Iggy bites back.

"So maybe I did!" Nudge screams, obviously aggravated and tired of something. Pretending, maybe? "So maybe I let her go so that I could protect myself! Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? It's every man for himself around here, and that is _exactly_ what I did."

"But I trusted you to keep Ella alive! I—I trusted you!" Iggy can't see Nudge's hot tears fall from her face, but she can see his accumulating in his blue eyes. "I trusted you…"

"Iggy, I…" Nudge reaches out and touches Iggy's shoulder. He jerks away like she's on fire.

"Don't touch me!" He snarls.

Nudge throws her hands into the air. "Okay! Well then, how's _this_ for an explanation? Maybe I might like you a little bit. Maybe Ella might have been in the way. Maybe I thought that if the Games could've naturally gotten rid of her, I wouldn't have any competition for…" The girl's voice trails off when she realizes what she's said in the heat of the moment. Her face bristles with red. I can't help but think that the Capitol must be eating this up right now, and judging from the look Angel gives me, she thinks so, too.

"I LOVED HER!" Iggy bellows, making the District 11 girl jump. "She was my eyes, my eyes to show me a world I could not see." I can almost feel Fang holding back a comment regarding Iggy's love for poetry.

"_I_ was your eyes!" Nudge yells back. "_I_ was your eyes long before she came into the picture!"

Iggy has no answer for this, and I assume that it must be true. For a moment, all we can hear is the sound of Nudge trying to contain and compose herself. Angel pulls on my shirt sleeve. "Why did you say that?" Her lips don't move, but her voice echoes in my mind. "Why did you say that about Nudge?"

The argument in front of me melts into the background. I wonder whether or not to sugar-coat my answer, or just be straightforward with the girl. She raises an eyebrow at me, and I know that there's no use for sugar now. _I just thought that it would be easier now if some of us just…killed others of us before we get down to just our little group left. It's not wise to have allies too close for too long. It's just a strategy, you see?_

Angel soaks this in for a moment before nodding. "I guess you're right. It's just…I guess you've just hit a nerve between these two. Ella's always been a problem, even before…" Like everyone else has when they get to this point, the girl's voice trails off.

Gazzy stands up and tries to tear the two apart from each other, obviously having enough of the fighting. He wraps his arms around Iggy's waist. "Alright, back to your corners," he struggles to pull his best friend away. "That's the end of round one, folks."

Fang, without a second thought, pulls Nudge over his shoulder and carries her away. She screams and starts to beat down on his back. I toy with the idea of just whipping out my bow and killing off all of them now. It would save a lot more time than we've already wasted fighting each other, and not actual enemies.

"Katniss is right." Angel perks up, and gets onto her feet. Iggy looks in her general direction.

"Oh?"

"Yes, she is." Angel says, her voice matter-of-fact. "She said that we are spending too much time fighting each other than the real enemy. We need to set our differences and our emotional issues aside, and work together to find a way to win this thing."

The rest of my allies exchange careful glances with each other, unsure whether or not to agree with the youngest of our group. I pipe up anxiously, "Just to let you know, I didn't say anything about your emotional problems. But I do agree with Angel. You need to stop putting your own issues in front of your own survival, because if you don't, you won't have any issues to go back to."

I gulp, and slowly watch as everyone else comes around.

Our game-changing moment, as they always are, is interrupted by the sound of surging waters. I get to my own two feet quicker than I can blink, and ignore the pain and the feeling of blood beginning to leak from my wound once more. What is that sound? Without bothering to voice the question that is obviously at the front of everyone's mind, I scramble to the top of the nearest tree, and gaze out over the arena. As I press myself up against the trunk, I stain the bark with my blood, but the rest left inside of me runs cold as I watch a huge tidal wave starts to attack the beach.

My pain becomes nothing more than a numb aggravation as the wave crashes against the beach, unsteady and out of control. The froth of the water turns the entire body of it white, the churning never ceasing.

That is when I see it. Or more, I see them. The four dots trying to push against the tidal wave, and losing the battle. I gulp down and squint closer at the figures. There is a glint of bronze hair, the glimmer of a sharp axe, a ray of sunlight bouncing off of a pair of glasses.

And I know who it is that is coming towards our side of the arena.

…

"Why do we have to drag Nuts and Volts across a tidal wave again?" Johanna Mason groans, and wishes for nothing more than for the wave to swallow her whole. This is too much work for the girl on fire, the ignorant child. Johanna would call her something worse, if it weren't for the fact that Finnick would personally dunk her into the water until she drowned, and she could barely breathe now.

The water consumes them for a second, and Jo loses her grip on Volts, the one she isn't as intolerant towards. If the District 7 victor had taken Wiress, the crazy lady would be drowned already. She was already knocked out; it couldn't be that hard…

She catches Finnick scowling at her through the water; obviously he knew what she was thinking. She shoots him the bird and swims back up to the surface.

The bronze-haired man comes up after her, and lounges onto his back, natural and looking at home. "Because of the," he lowers his voice, knowing that if he mutters he can't be heard over the water. "The rebellion."

"There's no need to whisper, Finn dear," Johanna retorts sarcastically. "It's not like the Capitol would dare to eavesdrop on our conversation!" She ends screaming at the holographic sky.

He splashes her as another wave starts to creep up on them. "Shut up." He says, and readies himself for surfing. She chokes a little bit and throws him a glare.

"Remember: this was your idea." Johanna splutters over the saltwater wave as it crashes over their bodies and pushes them deep into the water. When they come back up, she raises an eyebrow at him. "Your idea." She says again.

_Not mine, Jo._ Finnick thinks, but knows better than to say it out loud.

* * *

**A/N: And so _they_ come back into the picture.**


	24. Reassure

24. Reassure

Peeta's hunting companion comes stalking into the room covered in dirt and scratches, and looking like he wants to tear someone's throat out with his teeth. The baker only hopes that that someone isn't him when he turns away from the live-stream of the Games and asks, "How did it go?"

Letting out a long, overdrawn sigh, Gale falls back into Lionel's only good armchair and sets his head back. "I hate this."

The baker smiles at this comment. "That's funny, because it was _you_ who was so excited to get me into this mess in the first place."

Gale straightens up in his seat to look Peeta square in the eyes. "No, I mean, I hate _this_." He emphasizes. "I hate having to sneak around, collecting weapons right under the Capitol's nose. I hate waiting for that 'perfect moment' to attack. I hate that we have to fight for our freedom and the equality of the people in the first place."

"So you don't want to fight." Peeta clarifies.

"No, it's not that, because I do." The hunter groans, and pulls a cut up hand through his hair. "I want to be able to fight for this, and I want to win. It's just so much _work_. I mean, back at home, if I wanted something to eat I'd go find a squirrel in one of my traps and take it to Greasy Sae for a quick meal. Here, I have to be me and Greasy Sae _and_ the squirrel."

"But it'll be worth it in the end, right? The odds will end in your favor." Peeta, ever the optimist, flashes his friend a reassuring smile from the stool he sits on across the room.

Gale hunches forward, setting his elbows over his thighs. He steeples his fingers in front of his face and breathes in deeply. "It's not that, but the President is becoming impatient. She fears that my team will never get our mission done, and that she'll humiliate not only herself but our entire organization when she has to bail us out with reinforcements."

The baker studies his friend's position, his irregular breathing and overall trembling, before coming to a conclusion that's never concluded before: Gale Hawthorne is nervous. He is Mr. Cool and Collected, the ideal person to go to when you _don't_ want someone to freak out; the one guy Peeta knows that will kill anyone and everyone to get to what he wants, the one who never quits, but will poke fun at anything that breathes. This can't possibly be the same infamous Gale as the one sitting in Lionel's armchair, shivering and freaking out about what someone will think of him…can it?

"You're nervous." Peeta states after all of this thinking silence. "You really want don't want to disappoint this woman, the President. Why?"

"I…" the rebel pauses to look up into Peeta's open face. He doesn't understand; why, after all of this verbal abuse, and teasing and underestimations of the Mellark, why does he still consider Gale a friend? The hunter's been nothing but insulting, ever since they started on this journey. The only real, tangible step forward in their relationship was the agreement to put Katniss aside, and let her choose between the two on her own. Even so, the rebel leader did not consider Peeta a friend. A companion, an ally, a part of his team, maybe. But not a friend.

And so the oldest Hawthorne boy takes a chance, and for once it's one taken without prior calculations, or a look at the possible endings to this fragile sense of companionship between the two. Gale just takes a breath and plunges in. "President Coin had scouted me out personally, after seeing me on TV with Katniss. She said she knew a fighter when she sees one, and during the Tribute's Tour, I took a leave of absence in the mines. I read the letter the President had left me the night before, and followed its directions to the dot. It led me into this sort of…empty space, where there's nothing but trees and an eerie silence.

"Then it was like the President came up out of nowhere. She said that it was safe to talk out in the open, because the Capitol had promised to keep District 13 dead."

"But it is dead!" Peeta exclaims, unable to maintain his status as a 'good listener.'

Gale just smiles knowingly. "That's what I thought, until the President showed me what was really there. And she's so powerful and strong. President Coin was intimidating, but at the same time intriguing." Peeta watches at his friend's cheeks begin to heat up, as if he's complimenting his celebrity crush and not the steel-hearted head of a revolution. "Coin promised to tell me the truth if I promised to answer her final question wisely. She told me all about what happened to District 13, and what they've been doing ever since. And then she asked me her final question: to join the rebellion, the rebellion that would stop the Capitol from abusing the Districts, killing our children and oppressing the people of Panem once and for all."

"So what did you do?"

"Look at us, Peeta. What do you think I did?"

"…But why? Why did you decide to join?"

"Alma says that everyone has their own reasons. She said that hers was that taste of freedom from the Capitol that led to her revelation; she wanted everyone to be able to feel how she felt, waking up knowing that the Capitol couldn't breathe down her back."

Peeta grins. "So now we've gone from calling her the President to Alma?" he teases, and no one can miss the sudden, almost girly redness that brushes upon Gale's dirt-encrusted face. "What about you?"

"I wanted to join because I didn't want my siblings to go through what I did for six nerve-wracking years. I didn't want them to wake up on reaping day, hoping to God that they won't get picked, even though their name's in the fish bowl 42 times."

The baker makes a stunned 'o' shape with his mouth, but no sound comes out. His friend half-grimaces, and asks in a low voice, "And you?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you join our crusade?"

Peeta wants to say something witty, something funny, like _because you needed a baker_ or _because you claimed you had cookies_. Or maybe he wants to say something true, like _because you were going to kill me if I didn't_. But Peeta knows that none of these answers would be the right one. The right answer is the only one Peeta doesn't want to admit, because it sounds shallow and a little cliché. He tries to confess, but the words die in his mouth. _I joined for Katniss_.

As it turns out, the baker doesn't have to say anything at all. Gale gets up from his seat, promptly ending the conversation and starting a new one. He squints at the screen going off in the background. "We need to leave soon." He mutters.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Gale straightens and licks his lips. "Finnick and Johanna have rejoined Katniss and the bird kids. We need to prepare for our next move!" he shouts giddily, and dashes from the room.

"Gale?" Peeta calls tentatively after his friend.

A head pokes back into the room, his face impassive and his thick, dirty hair falling over the blinking gray eyes. "Yes?"

For a moment, for some odd and unidentifiable reason, Peeta freezes. He stands there in the barren dining room, his arms limping swaying at his sides, his teeth gnawing tentatively on the inside of his cheek. "You—you really shouldn't be nervous. You're a great leader, Gale, and…"

By now, the older boy has stepped fully in the room, and is making his way towards the blonde, an eyebrow beginning to rise. "…And?"

Peeta finds himself clearing his throat. "And I think that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You won't disappoint the President."

Gale smiles. "I'll keep your vote of confidence in mind. Thank you." He tips his head towards the younger, and withdraws himself from the room.

The sides of the victor's mouth curve up a little. Turning to face the television, he watches the screen for Katniss's face for a moment, before straightening his shirt and making his exit.

"_Tick tock_," her hollow voice says to the empty room. On-screen Katniss gazes out at the arena, a look of awe set upon her face in the midst of her realization. "_This is a clock_."

* * *

**A/N: So the truth comes out. That's right, folks. Gale's got an idolizing girl-crush on President Alma Coin.**


	25. Spill

**A/N: Skip skip skip ahead a little bit in time…**

* * *

25. Spill

She watches with satisfaction as Nudge and Fang take turns punching a middle-aged guy's lights out, and smiles despite the fact that her stomach is slowly starting to feast upon itself. Due to her dehydration and lack of food and sleep, Jeb had stuck an IV up her arm, and to get away from the gore upon the screen Max starts to watch the clear liquid slowly drip down into her system. The scientist observes behind her with a deadpan expression. He clicks the top of his pen and scribbles something down.

"Why do I have to keep watching this?" Max groans, and tilts her head back to peer over at the man she once considered as a fatherly figure. "I've already told you, _I don't have a breaking point_."

"You might not." Jeb's voice is quiet, and he gestures towards the Games going on in the background. "But they do."

Max can't help but wonder what he might mean. Her babies, her warriors have a breaking point? They might get mad at each other, and they might end up fighting it out, but everything's always turned up alright in the end. Well, mostly. Max wishes she can hide the reminding scars glaring up at her from her forearms.

They are her soldiers; every single one of them. They're tough as nails, and won't hesitate to bring someone down. How is it possible that they have a breaking point? How…? "Oh." Her face relaxes as the leader suddenly comes up to the answer. How long had it taken her to come to this? She curls her hands around the bars of the chair and whispers, "It's me. I'm their breaking point."

For a moment the room is silent except for a young boy slinking out of the water and slitting a woman's throat with his knife. The girl on fire appears and takes out the tribute without a second glance.

Jeb places a hand on his daughter's shoulder. It is cold, and she tries to jerk away but his fingers just tighten their grip, until his fingernails are seconds away from puncturing Max's skin. She closes her eyes in an attempt to calm herself down before her temper flares out of control. "Oh, Max," He says silkily. "We should have known you were so conceited. I mean, I knew that you think highly of yourself, but I didn't think it was that much."

If Jeb is baiting her, it works, and Maximum Ride's calm and collected personality snaps in two.

"Conceited? Me? How dare you even think about putting those two words in the same sentence! I dedicated my childhood to taking care of no one but my warriors, my babies. The ones you abandoned to go back to some white coat friends that were part of your little _Bauherren _group."

Jeb snatches back his hand as if Max has burned him, and she knows she's hit a nerve.

"You think I didn't find out about your friends?" Max pushes. "You think I wouldn't find out about the truth about Dr. Hans? How he trusted you with the world's best distraction?"

"Stop." Jeb mutters.

She can't. "I know, Jeb. I know how Haagen-Dazs knew that the world was going to end before I was even created. You think I wouldn't find out?"

"Stop." Jeb says louder.

She keeps pushing further, unable to do what he commands. She never could. "I was nothing but a pawn, a toy to play with, something to keep the common-minded busy while Hans was busy preparing to take over the world after the apocalypse had run its course!" Max voice continues to grow louder and louder. "We were nothing but stepping stones!"

"Stop!"

"Nothing but disposable distractions!"

"STOP!" Jeb commands, his face inches from hers.

"Sorry, Jeb," Max smiles at him. "I can't stop now. I've just gotten started, because I remember. _Everything._"

Without thinking, Jeb reaches forward and slaps Max across the face, leaving a sting and the scent of blood in its wake. For a moment they stare at each other, too stunned to drop the weight of silence that's settling upon their shoulders. The girl recovers faster, and she grins wickedly through the pain. "Whose breaking point's been reached now?" she calls after him as Batchelder storms through the door of the room, and slams it shut behind him.

…

"You let them get away!" Johanna looks infuriated, and about ready to thrust her axe through Fang's chest just right there. Secretly, I am glad that I have someone else to chew out the winged ones, knowing that they see me as an odd replacement for their missing _Max_.

"This is the Hunger Games." Finnick sides with Johanna, his trident gleaming with new blood. "It's either kill or be killed, not let them live and be killed!"

Angel looks ready to cry. "Well, what are we supposed to do?" she cries.

"I know what to do," Johanna says too sweetly, and gets down to the girl's level. She puts both her hands on Angel's shoulders. "You put both hands around their neck, and twist!" the older woman narrows her blood-lusting eyes and curls her fingers around Angel's pale neck. Her small hands claw at Johanna's arms uselessly.

"Let her go!" Gazzy roars defiantly.

The victor from District 7 turns to look at him. "Or what? You're going to give me a mouthful of fist?" she bites.

"I'm thinking about it." Gazzy snaps.

Johanna smirks, and drops Angel onto the sand. She stands. "Okay. So what are you going to do when I press the tip of my axe to your chest…like so?" There is a glitter in her eyes that I can see from where I stand next to Beetee. Johanna studies the boy's face for a moment before relinquishing her weapon. "That's what I thought." Turning to Finnick, she says loudly, "These are a bunch of winged wimps. I say let's kill them and get out of here. They're just a bunch of dead weight. 'Specially the blind one, over there."

Iggy's fist collides with Johanna Mason's face in an instant. She tumbles out of the way and into a ready position. The cut streaks fresh blood down her cheek. "Good, good!" she encourages, the pain a delicious sensation. "But can you finish me off?"

My district partner steps forward and easily disarms the District 7 victor. She falls back onto the sand, defenseless and an easy kill. We can hear her heavy breathing as if I can feel her accelerated heartbeat pulse against my skin. Iggy reaches forward and presses the axe to her neck. There is a moment of absolute tension, my arm frozen pulling out an arrow. I can't decide who I want to shoot first, Johanna or Iggy.

"Go ahead," Jo breathes, obviously dying for a taste of what Wiress had. "Do it. Just one move of your arm and it'll be all over."

So he does. The tall boy raises the weapon to the sky and brings it down at lightning speed. The bird kids look away, but Beetee, Finnick and I lick our lips in anticipation. Johanna's eyes stay wide open, waiting, wanting, starving for the violence. The blood. The sweet release. I can see it in her eyes, and wonder if Iggy can feel how she does. How is it possible that he can be so calm when he's about to claim his first victim?

The sun bounces off the blade of the axe as it comes down and just skims over the skin at the base of Johanna's neck, leaving a sore line behind, and not a single drop of blood. Iggy lets the axe fall from his hand, but he is unwavering, calm. "We are not wimps, Johanna. It takes a lot of courage to take a life, yes. But it takes a lot more to spare one."

And with that, Iggy turns away and starts to walk off the beach and back towards the beach. I want to remind him that now we have no idea where everything in the arena is since we spun, and that we won't know until the beast returns, but I don't. Because I have a feeling that he already knows.

"Wimp!" Johanna screams after him. "Coward! Spineless excuse for a human!" She hurls her axe at the back of his head. In her anger, it spirals around Iggy's flame-like hair and lands in the water.

Nudge frowns at the victor. "Actually, we're mutts." With that, the girl turns on her heel and runs after her friend. One by one the Flock scowls at Johanna and follows Iggy back into the jungle.

"Imbecile! Freak!" Johanna is starting to go mad as she screams, now unable to control her temper. Beetee rises next to me, the spool of wire cradled in his arms. We nod at each other, and follow the rest away from the Cornucopia.

Iggy turns around to face the sounds, cups his hands around his mouth and yells back at her, "You forgot to mention 'great cook'!" In response I think we hear Finnick say he'll stay behind, to try and cool her down.

As we move farther away, Johanna shrieks become occasional gurgles and incessant splashing.

* * *

**A/N: So I might have made Johanna a little OOC...but whatever. I actually like this chapter :D**


	26. Scream

**A/N: I'm back! Sorry guys, school's been a b*tch. But here's the next chapter. Enjoy!**

* * *

26. Scream

"What was that?" Nudge stops making tracks in the sand to look around. She catches Fang's eye. "Did you hear that?"

The sound pierces through the air, shocking and raw and in pain. Someone is screaming, somewhere in the arena. It is a voice I do not recognize, but we can all tell that is a woman in terrifying danger. Her voice strikes through the air again, and causes a wave of something to lick at my insides and make me feel on edge. My heart feels like it's dropped.

That is when someone amongst our allies matches a face to the voice. Everything about him turns ice cold; the ocean in his eyes turns to frozen fear. He trembles slightly, and opens his mouth to speak. Nothing but stifled words comes out, and he takes off towards the sound.

"Finnick no!" a dripping wet Johanna yells after him. She reaches out to catch him, but misses the tortured soul as the passes and vanishes into the green.

I take off after him, not wanting the ally who had already gotten away once to be lured into a trap. He was one of the only sane ones left, and I needed someone with reason to cling onto. As I pass Iggy, I tap him on the arm, hoping to convey the message to stay until I return. Taking off into the green, it isn't hard to follow the path Finnick has laid out before us; leaves are stripped from their trees, and vines lay coiled up on the ground where they've been hacked down.

There are footsteps behind me; I don't have time to waste, so I shout over my shoulder, "Go back to the beach and wait, Iggy!"

"So I'm blind now?" the person retorts and continues to follow me uphill.

"Go back to the beach and wait, _Fang_!" I rephrase, and swat behind me blindly. "I've got this." Just as the words leave my mouth, we reach our ally standing over the small body, grinding his heel into it. He looks up as we cautiously approach, and I see something has died in his eyes.

"Nothing to worry about. They're just—" his gruff voice is cut short by another shrill of terror and utter panic. It is one I recognize almost immediately.

"Prim?" I whimper, and feel my entire body being dropped into the frozen wasteland I saw in District 4's eyes moments ago. How could my sister be here, in the Games? It's not possible, unless…my thoughts fall upon Snow. _He couldn't…_ I don't have time to finish the thought, because I have already started to scramble towards the continuous sounds of pain, of a tortured soul.

Two strong arms grip onto my shoulders, holding me back from reaching my beloved Primrose. "No!" Their owner grunts. "It's not her!" But Finnick cannot contain me, and I break free from his grip and rip through the jungle preventing me from reaching her.

Running forward, nothing but Prim's voice echoing in my mind. Where could she be? Where could they be hiding her? Her horrified screams sound again, and this time it is directly above me. Looking up, I expect to find her bright eyes glowing in fear, hidden amongst the leaves and branches of the canopy. There's nothing there but a peculiar bird, its beak shining like it's made of metal. The feathers covering its body are black as death, and nothing like the ones on Fang's back. They full of hate and pure chaos.

It opens its mouth and screams at me. Screams in Prim's voice.

That single sound seals its fate, and soon there is an arrow protruding through its vocal chords. The Jabberjay tumbles to the littered ground. Turning to my allies as they stumble onto the scene, I raise the dead bird to the air and mutter brokenly, "They're not real."

"Annie's not here," Finnick confirms breathlessly.

"Neither is Prim," I agree as another howl pierces the air. In the same instance, Fang tenses and he lifts his nose to the air. Without a second thought, the bronze-haired man and I nod and each other, and pin Fang down to the ground.

"Get off me!" He roars, but even his eyes are lined with petrifying dread. "I have to reach her; I have to—"

"She's not here!" Finnick bellows over the girl's screams, and slams Fang's body back down to the ground.

As the boy is being pinned down, I search the trees for the epicenter of Fang's suffering, his weakness. I don't recognize the voice, and I can't help but wonder who it is. She must be the one Fang loves, the only one. I find a black shadow sitting on a branch, and I release the arrow in my hands. The screeches fall silent for a moment. Fang lifts his head and removes the hands from his head.

I look at him grimly, and can do nothing but shake my head.

"She wasn't…?" Fang whispers.

Finnick hauls him to his feet. "No," he licks his lips, and locks eyes with me. "None of them were here."

A flock of Jabberjays begin to orchestrate around us. Their presence alone makes fear spread inside me, its wispy fingers reaching to lift every single follicle of hair on my head. "We need to go. Right…now!"

Wanting to get away from the screams and the agony and the torture, we trip away from the birds and backtrack. I know that we need to get away as soon as we can, to regain our sanity. The shrieks follow us wherever we go, and we aren't able to escape them.

I can identify a lot of the voices tailing us as we speed through the trees. There's Gale, Prim, my mother, Madge, and Darius. And Peeta. My poor, poor Peeta. I wish again that he was there with me, to comfort me and hold me until it is over. The thought of comfort is scared away by the unbroken, overlapping voices. I hear all of my winged allies, crying for Fang; his unknown girl returns as we near the tree line. We see the rest of our comrades, Johanna and Iggy in front, just standing there, waiting for us. Why didn't they come and save us from the voices?

Seeing the end as near as it is, Fang sprints ahead, more than ready to get away from the voice of the person that he loves the most. My exhausted mind half-wonders if the person was this infamous, secretive Max that keeps being brought up in conversation. But the thought is written off as ridiculous as soon as it is formed. Max, from the vague information that's been mentioned, sounds like a fearless leader, a man.

Everything is drowned out by the birds again. Time speeds up, and Fang ricochets off the tree line and slams to the ground. His face is covered in blood from having crashed into something head-on. Reaching out more cautiously than the last, my hand reaches something invisible, like a plate of unbreakable glass separating us from the rest on the outside. Even Angel's powers cannot reach us as we are swarmed with the violent, earsplitting sounds.

Finnick, ever tough Finnick, collapses under the pressure almost automatically. It is obvious that he knows that we will not be able to come to a sweet release from the pure hate and panic reverberating from the Jabberjays' beaks. We will have to wait until the hour is over.

Unlike the District 4 man, who is cradling himself and pressing the heels of his hands into his ears, I fight through the emotional pain, shooting down every single mutt in my sights. But as they fall to the ground, another flutters down to take its place, and I realize that my attempts are pointless.

My legs reduce to jelly, and I collapse to the warm dirt and Finnick. I squeeze my eyes shut, close my hands over my ears and wait for it to be over. _Please let it be over…_

_ Please…_

That is when I hear the song. Muffled and low, it is the song I have sung for Iggy on many occasions. Peering up, not wanting to steal a glance at the Jabberjays above us, I look at Fang.

He is not covering his ears; he is not shutting his eyes as tightly as he can like a coward. Leaning up against the trunk of a tree with his purple-in-the-sunlight wings unfurled behind him, Fang is twirling a twig between his fingers, one knee pulled up to his chest. He is humming, not able to conjure up the words to the tune.

Cautiously, I shut my eyes and recite the lyrics that have ingrained themselves into my brain.

"_The King walked in his garden green_

_Where grew a marvelous tree;_

_And out of its leaves came singing birds_

_By one, and two and three."_

Fang's soft tenor joins me, ghosts of the singing birds barely passing through his lips. I don't bother to look at him, don't bother to think of the screams we are using as an accompaniment, and I focus on the song and the three birds.

"_The first bird had wings of white,_

_The second had wings of gold,_

_The third had wings of deepest blue_

_Most beauteous to behold."_

Looking over at our third ally, I don't think that Finnick's heard anything except for the shrill voices. His fear is so overpowering that he cannot bear to think of anything else but his own ghosts. So how are Fang and I able to get past the fear and get rid of them with this reoccurring song? As I push myself off of the ground, my own voice breaks down to just above a whisper,

"_And at their window sang the birds,_

_They sang the whole night through,_

_Then off they went at break of day,_

_The white, the gold, and the blue."_

The trees are silent. When we glance up, the black as death birds armed with an arsenal of munitions greater than any other weapon in history have gone, and there is nothing but the searing memories of the screams in our minds to ensure us that they were even real. The rest of our allies flood into the jungle, and swarm around us, fussing around with questions we cannot seem to answer. Johanna is the only one to go and help Finnick to his feet. As I watch her carefully, she helps him up, her face open and concerned. She leads him out of the trees and into the open air.

Slowly getting to my own feet, I feel Fang step over to me. I don't have the stomach to bother with small talk. "How much do you remember?" I ask in a low voice, one that I am sure only we can here.

The winged boy reaches to smooth out his suit, and in a low voice replies, "Everything."

* * *

**A/N: Look! A reoccurring theme! It's the song, haha. It's not just a filler, I can promise you that. c;**


	27. Seperate

27. Separate

The countdown on the wall of Lionel's training room flashed the words _6 HOURS AND COUNTING_ in red over Peeta's sweating face as he prepared for the invasion. Lionel, prejudicing against the tribute since he was the greenhorn of the operation and the easiest to con, had told Peeta that he was allowed to bring only one weapon into the arena when he went to save his love, so the blade better be a damn good one.

Because of the rebel, the baker ended up spending his last few hours in District 8 working his hunting knife into the sides of the dummies. As the victor slit the throat of his recent victim, the door was forced open and Gale threw himself into the room. A few of the rebels stumble after him, and begin to pick up what's left of the revolutionary evidence. After they vacate Lionel's house, there could be no evidence left to incriminate any of the District 8 rebels.

As they push the mangled dummies out the door and to the furnace, Peeta is sheathing his hunting knife and studying Gale's harried face. The older boy keeps licking his lips, as if he is becoming more and more nervous about something. Thinking of comforting the head revolutionary, Peeta ultimately decides against it, in fear of instigating even more stress. Instead, he asks excitedly, "We ready to go?"

"We're not going." Gale replies numbly, his voice low.

His blue eyes widen. "I'm sorry, but what?"

The hunter looks into his eyes and licks his lips again. "I mean, _I'm_ not going."

"Why not?"

"Is that really important?" Gale snaps, and storms from the room as if he's guilty of something.

"It should be." Peeta stumbles after his friend. As he steps through the threshold, one of the rebels takes down the countdown as it flashes down to _5 HOURS AND COUNTING_.

As they hurry down the hall and into the underground tunnel that leads to the hovercraft, Gale tries to give his companion the best explanation possible in his ultimately frazzled and panicky state. "Snow found out about the plan."

"What?"

"Let me finish! He knows. Our man on the inside was tortured into telling him everything. There was nothing we could do."

"So now what? We just let Katniss be killed 'naturally' by the Games?"

"Let me _finish_! He's not going to stop us."

"Oh good."

"He's going to do something worse. He's going to bomb 12." Instantly, Peeta pulls over in the middle of the tunnel, grabs onto Gale's shoulder and glares into his eyes in shock.

"He's…he's…" the victor manages, barely able to comprehend what's about to happen. In the back of his mind, he can see the warehouse referred to as 'the Hob' exploding into a burst of ash and flames. He can see people running around in chaos, unable to understand why this is happening. He can see the Square being torn apart, the Peacekeepers rising up in the smoke, poking through all the rubble, tossing aside all the bodies to ensure that District 12 has been obliterated. Peeta can see his parents rushing around in a state of utter anarchy, trying to save all of their worldly objects as the bomb is dropped over his childhood home and the bakery is reduced to bits and pieces. In his mind's eye, Peeta cannot find his family's remains.

And he can see it all happen in an instant.

"No…" Peeta's limbs slacken, his blue eyes filling with the fires of destruction.

"Yes." Gale says firmly. "It's going to happen, and there is no way to stop it. He'll blame it on the rebel attacking in the middle of the Quarter Quell, and that'll be that."

"Well someone's got to go back; someone's got to warn them!" Peeta cries out, and begins to storm his way down the path, towards the hovercraft, with a new determination growing inside him.

"Someone _is_ going to warn them." Gale assures him, and forces the younger boy to look at him. "Look at me. Look me in the eye." Gale instructs, as if talking to a child. "Good. Now you're going to listen to me, and you're going to do everything I say, exactly how I say it. Nod if you understand.

"Good." His voice and shoulders relax, and he conveys his orders as calmly as he possibly can. "I hereby appoint you leader of this mission. Lionel, Markus, they will all be under your control. They will be you're responsibility."

"What? No, Gale I can't—"

"Listen!" The rebel's temper flares for a moment before dimming back down. He breathes in slowly before continuing. "I'm going back to District 12 with the small hovercraft to warn the people before they come. If I can, I'll get them into the woods and into District 13. It's the best we can do. In the meantime, you will take your men to the arena. You will collect Plutarch, so he can show you where exactly the arena is. You will wait for Beetee to create an opening in the force field before going in. Each man has his tribute to take back to the hovercraft. Yours is Katniss, Markus's is the Gasman, and so on."

"No, Gale, you don't understand—I can't do this!" Peeta pleads as he feels his heart drop down into his stomach and release a wave of nauseating fear through his body. "I'm no leader, I can't give orders and I can't take this sort of responsibility! The things I'm best at are following orders, painting and baking cakes."

"And surviving through unpredictable odds." Gale flashes him a reassuring smile, the best he can conjure through this time of chaos and irreversible risks. "And I think that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You won't disappoint."

Peeta recognizes the words as his own; in fact, they were the exact ones he had comforted the older boy with not too long ago. "Thank you." He says softly, and bows his head.

For a moment Gale thinks about hugging his second-closest friend (his first being Katniss), before deciding to go for it and envelopes the baker in a close, emotionally bursting hug. It was the sort of hug he had given Katniss before her first Games, full of hope and wishes of good luck and the words _if you die I'll kill you_ being the message conveyed all at once. Gale Hawthorne never thought he would have a friend, a person he would trust with his position of leader of the rebels, something he wouldn't give away for almost anything.

Finally, the two release and Gale looks away uncomfortably. Peeta, ever the one to brush off awkwardness like yesterday's collection of dust, asks, "Look for my parents, will you? I mean, I know that they probably won't go, but…" his voice trails off.

"I'll try," Gale says, and he means it. "Good luck."

"You too." With that, both boys simultaneously breathe in slowly, and part ways. One boards the smaller hovercraft, bound for District 12. The other climbs aboard the bigger vehicle.

Lionel looks over at the blonde and sneers. "Where's our captain?"

Peeta looks at the doubting man closely before lifting his chin proudly, steeling the look in his eyes, and stating clearly, "Right here."

…

My bleeding arm throbs as I pull back the coiled knife. Nudge is still knocked out, and writhing in her own blood on the ground behind me. _You've got one shot, Katniss._ _Don't screw it up._

The sky is pitch black. The cannon sounds are going off, but I don't know who's died, and I hope that it's no one I know. I can barely think straight. _Just one shot, Katniss._ I make sure that Beetee's wire is tied tightly. _One shot._ His ragged breathing can be heard from my place near the force field.

_Your enemy._

Everything around me becomes silent as I set my sights on the flaw of the arena's force field, and hurl the weapon towards it with the power I have left inside, and the world explodes into a bright light before me.

* * *

**A/N: And the drama begins to unfold.**


	28. Invade

28. Invade

"That's it." Peeta mutters to himself from the hovercraft as the arena below him explodes into a fine white light. "Alright, pilot!" He says louder. "Let's go, let's go!" He turns to Gale's, now his, soldiers, and straightens his back as best he can. The victor must come off as powerful, important. As a leader. He nods at Lionel, and the older man barks out the orders.

"Alright men, we have one job. Let's not screw it up!"

With that, the door beneath the rebels' feet opens, and a ladder collapses from it. Looking back at the people left in the craft before he goes down after his men, Peeta catches the eye of one Plutarch Heavensbee, a man they had picked up from the Capitol before heading to the arena. They nod at each other, and Peeta starts down the ladder.

Everything in the arena is collapsing, out of control. Trees are falling, the beach is flooding, the only sounds to be heard are that of orders being barked and chaos. The hovercraft drops them off in the middle of the jungle. "Fan out!" Peeta yells as the tree beside him starts to tumble. "Watch yourselves! Find the tributes and let's get out of here!"

Within half a minute, the blonde victor is alone. There is a line of gold wire hidden along the path, and he follows it deeper into the jungle. A high-pitched bird call breaks through the wind and the shouts and the white noise all around Peeta, causing him to peer up through the canopy. He watches as another hovercraft appears out of nowhere. The door opens to send down what looks like a hundred Peacekeepers. Knowing he's pressed for time, Peeta hurries to follow the gold line, his hunting knife out and ready.

The first Peacekeeper the boy comes across is dead before he can even open his mouth. The blonde had run him through with the blade by pure accident; he had been searching for Katniss and not looking where he was going. Peeta is glad for this, though, and removes his knife and keeps going. The Peacekeeper falls to the ground, his white suit now splattered slightly with blood.

In the dark, he can see three bodies strewn about on the ground. Running to the first one, he recognizes the dark-skinned girl as Monique Fever. Pulling the earpiece up that fell off when he jumped down into the arena, Peeta whispers fiercely, "Nolan? Clay? Come in. I have your tributes in my sights right now. Yes; I think I'm in the top sector. I don't know exactly where; check your map; I'm the blue dot. Alright. I'll keep them safe." As he says this, Peeta leans down and presses two cold fingers to Monique's neck. He can feel her heartbeat, and it feels like the flutter of wings. It makes sense, with her being grafted with avian DNA.

As the procedure Gale had gone over diligently with his new recruit-turned-leader-of-the-entire-operation, Peeta takes her left arm into his, and carefully slits open the forearm. He picks out the tracker with the tip of his hunter's knife, sets it on the ground, and steps on it with everything's he's got. The bloodied piece of hardware lays in shatters in the dirt as the victor goes to work on Beetee.

As soon as Peeta places the tracker on the ground, he feels something press up against the back of his neck.

"Sir, I've got one of the rebels in my sights." A deep, biting voice says, and the said rebel knows that it is one of the Peacekeepers. His attacker then addresses the blonde, "You're gonna turn around real slow, or else—" the man is unable to finish his sentence as Peeta plunges his already wet knife hilt-deep into the man's stomach. He gasps a little, and wilts to the ground. Peeta kicks his head out of the way, the boy himself high on the adrenaline.

He squats down to inspect Katniss, and that is when Nolan and Clay appear, breathless. Their leader thinks of scolding the two, but thinks better of it and points towards the two bodies on the ground. "Take them to the hovercraft. Take care of them. I'll be there soon."

"Yes, sir." The younger one, Nolan, replies stiffly, takes Monique into his arms and takes off into the jungle. Clay does the same with the older District 3 man and he disappears from Peeta's sight.

Lover boy, thinking he's concealed by the foliage, now takes his time with Katniss. He brushes the stray, bloodied hair from her face, and places a soft kiss on her cheek. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you," he murmurs, and sweeps his girl on fire in his arms. She curls into him slightly, and lets out a moan of pain. He clutches onto her tighter, points his dirty blade in front of him, and stumbles through the trees as best he can while watching for the enemy.

With the hovercraft in sight, Peeta has a last burst of energy and runs towards the sight of awe. There is a shuffling in the leaves, and the victor stops cold. Taking in a sweeping look around him, the victor finds himself surrounded by men in white, and they are holding their weapons out at him merciless. Keeping alert, Peeta glances up into the hovercraft to see Plutarch looking nervously down at him, and presses Katniss's unconscious body against the static-electricity rope. Raising his eyebrows knowingly, Peeta tugs the ladder and watches as her body is lifted up to safety.

Talking into his earpiece once more, Peeta murmurs, "Heavensbee. Relocate. Send the rest your coordinates. I'll hold these ones off." And after a moment's worth of Plutarch's reply, he grins darkly. "I've survived the Hunger Games, the wrath of Gale, and being Katniss Everdeen's love interest. I think I've got this."

And with that, the boy takes the earpiece out and holds the hunting blade out in front of him. He cocks one eyebrow proudly, feeling like a completely different person, a different player. Everything about the last couple of weeks has changed him, prepared him for this moment. Peeta is no longer the nice guy, the pitied baker following the girl on fire like a puppy on a leash.

He is Peeta Mellark. And he is a fighter.

"Who wants a piece of me?" He challenges loudly as the hovercraft rises into the air and away from the battle about to break between the victor and the Peacekeepers.

The men in white begin to move in.

…

The Commander of the Rebel Forces counts the men of the mission, and then counts again. He's checked off Monique Fever, James Griffiths, Angel, the dark kid, and of course, the star of the show—Katniss Everdeen herself.

Looking over the list, Plutarch calls Lionel over. "We're missing a few. Ernest was supposed to collect Johanna Mason, but I haven't gotten a single report from him since he went down. And where _the hell_ is Markus?"

"I don't know, sir." The man thinks about mentioning that the Mellark boy is missing as well, but goes against his better judgment and stays quiet. The young boy, the greenhorn for God's sake, had been appointed by Hawthorne as the new leader, and Lionel could not figure it out. Why had it _not_ been him?

But, ah, his personal issues were another matter entirely. Lionel brushes them off, and goes back to help his men.

…

Gazzy feels as if he's swallowed a lightning bolt. Everything about him hurts a lot, and it's something even his enhanced DNA can't fix. Groaning, the boy lifts up his arms to stretch to find them shackled to a cold metal table. Opening his eyes, the young boy finds he can't see anything but a bright white light that peers down into his blue eyes.

And it is those same eyes that fill with dread as the smell of medical supplies hit his nose. Struggling against the pain to lift his head, Gazzy takes a look at his surrounds while simultaneously trying to blink away the white light covering his vision.

The room he's being kept in is circular, with five separate beds shaped in a star. He is on the table opposite of the door. Left of the door is a blonde older boy with dried blood all over his face and chest. To the right is a woman with spiky brown hair; Gazzy remembers her as Johanna Mason, the woman wielding an axe.

Between him and the unidentifiable blonde boy is an empty table, but it seems to the young one that it used to hold someone, for there is blood smeared across the metal. Agonizing pain shoots up his spine as Gazzy painstakingly turns his head to the right to find a familiar pair of brown eyes already looking at him.

She smiles at him, but the gesture seems broken beyond compare. She's trying, though, she's really trying. Gazzy feels the pricks of tears rising up to his own eyes and throat, and everything inside him feels like falling apart and falling into place, all at the same time. He stares curiously back at the girl, and rasps the question that's been pounding against the front of his mind, but now it's full of relief and pain, no longer suffering and the unknown.

"Max?"

* * *

**A/N: And that's sort of it, I'm afraid. I wanted to continue it, and I sort of did, but the story really didn't go very far after the Quarter Quell was over. I might post a little epilogue-y type thing saying how Max and the Flock got into Panem in the first place, and what happened after all of this, so keep a good lookout.**

**Thank you so much for reading, for bearing with me and my silly little story :) I truly appreciate every review, every favorite, every follow, and I hope I can keep you entertained with my other stories as they begin to unfold on this site, and I really loved writing this for you, I really did. But it's time to wrap this up (And I lost all my inspiration for this as well, oops).**

**Thank you, and I love all that have read this. Love always, AgentAva**


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